Viva Piñata: Paradise in the Making
by Soshafa
Summary: Following the progression of a young gardener named MoonLily Autumns, the story centers around her garden and her love for all piñata, sours included. After being unable to find the answers to her ever growing list of questions, she finds herself turning to Dastardos for help, and that is where our first chapter begins.
1. Chapter 1: An Introduction to MoonLily

This is extremely unusual. Certainly something that she's never seen before, nor has she ever heard of it before, and apparently no one else has either. The situation isn't as dire as everyone she's told is making it out to be, at least not to her, and it certainly could be much worse. She's more frustrated at the lack of answers or explanations than she is worried about the state of her garden. After all, nothing bad has come of this particular peculiar predicament just yet, and it's been going on for almost an entire week now.

The situation is one that is a bit difficult to explain to someone who doesn't understand. The "she" in question is a young lady by the name of MoonLily Autumns, bright purple eyes, deep red almost pink long hair tied up in a messy bun, tanned skin, and vibrant clothes patterned with purple, yellow, orange, and blue, the colours matching almost perfectly to that of her mask. She is a gardener here on Piñata Island, and although her family has a long history of generations of gardeners, MoonLily's garden certainly doesn't show it. The garden itself isn't lacking potential, nor is MoonLily, there has simply been a string of unfortunate circumstances that paved the way for her to end up at a place like this, with a garden like this, with these very underwhelming results of her efforts.

She is filled with enthusiasm towards gardening on Piñata Island. Everything about it fills her with excitement and the giddiness of a child. She loves the colour, and the magic, and the plants, and the grass, the sand under her feet and how it warms her toes, the icy chill of the snow and the delicate uniqueness of each individual snowflake, and veins in the leaves and how they appear under the light of the sun, the adorable piñata, the big and the small, she loves it all as if she wasn't born here and every day was her first.

Despite her enthusiasm and determination, her garden has very little expanse. She can't quite figure out what it is she's doing wrong. Her piñata are content, and they certainly enjoy her company just as much as she enjoys theirs, she doesn't over water her plants or dehydrate them either, she buries her seeds in the ground with the utmost care, she feeds her piñata fruit and vegetables and makes sure there is enough space for everyone. She's certain she isn't doing anything wrong, but she just doesn't seem to be progressing.

This **was** the problem at first, but then the sours started to appear.

The sour shellybean would have been easy enough to handle, had MoonLily not found it absolutely adorable. It wasn't hurting anyone, it was just a bit clumsy and shy, the poor thing must have been so scared after being turned into a sour, it doesn't mean any harm, it's just hungry. All she had to do was keep an eye on it and break any sour candy it choked up, easy. Then once she found out that an apple seed can change it back she was so proud of the little shellybean and how far it had come. Such a brave little piñata trying to find it's way in the world. Her methods for handling sour piñata aren't exactly common place for most gardeners.

So of course, when the sour sherbat made it's appearance she was fascinated and curious of this feisty fanged flying fox.

This is finally where the peculiarness begins, if it hadn't started already.

The sour sherbat had made it's way into MoonLily's garden, and of course she insisted on trying to feed it, to somehow tame it without the knowledge of how to unsour it. Her method; candy. Candy always worked. If a fight looks like it might break out, candy calms the piñata down. A piñata is upset about something, candy cheers them up. Is there anything happy candy can't do? Yes. Unsour a sour piñata. But she did discover something. Something that she thought was incredibly interesting.

Although the candy didn't completely return the sour to it's unsour state, eating enough had given the sour a faint halo, and lulled it to sleep. It was calm, it was soothed, it was snuggled up asleep in her lap for the entire afternoon. She had temporarily tamed it in it's sour state, and she wanted to know why. She wanted to know how.

This has been happening for almost a week now. The sour sherbat would fly into her garden, and for the first couple of days it would avoid her and try and prey on her piñata, but now it's learnt to simply stand under her feet and shriek. It flaps it's wings to try and get her attention if she's busy with something else, it will follow her when its in her garden until it gets it's candy. Then it eats until it's full, the halo appears, it's shrieks turn into squeaks, and it curls up and sleeps. It sleeps for several hours until the halo disappears, and then it simply flies away again, leaving her garden and piñata unharmed.

She loves this little sherbat. She would love to know how to help it unsour, but a friend of hers only says that sour sherbats eat pumpkins, and the sherbat couldn't be less interested in pumpkins if it's life depended on it. But possibly worst of all, no one can tell her why this sour doesn't do any harm to her garden or residents, or why feeding it candy makes it tame and sleep, or why of gets a halo and what this all means.

MoonLily is a lot of things, but a quitter is not one of them, and stubborn certainly is.

She could quite possibly have the most stupid-smartest idea in the history of her whole life.

Seeing as how she can't get answers from any of the villagers or neighboring gardeners, she is going to get them from someone who **lives** with sours. Someone who spends so much time with them, that surely they will know the answers she's looking for.

Sleeping sour sherbat in her lap, her journal to the left of her, sick whirlm to her right, she waits facing towards the desert.

She waits patiently as it starts to turn to dusk, to twilight. The sun kissing the horizon goodnight, the moon slowly peeking up to chase the stars, she waits.

And she waits.

Seriously does he know she wants him to show up or is he really this slow? Does he think this is some sort of trick? A trap to try and lure him into shame or pain or worse? She just wants answers damn it, this is getting frustrating.

Maybe he's just as scared of her as she is of him.

…. Maybe? It's just another question she doesn't have the answer too. She sighs quietly as the sour begins to wake up again, enough time has passed for the halo to fade. She places it down on the grass in front of her, knowing that it'll be agitated once it's fully awake again and it's best to let it stretch on its own for its flight away from her garden. Shame, she was hoping having it here and with its halo would make things easier for her to ask what was going on with it.

The sour sherbat flies away, and MoonLily is left with her sick whirlm and her journal, her piñata asleep in their homes. Maybe her garden just isn't even worth the reaper's time yet, but even then that doesn't make sense if sours are showing up, right? She's just so confused. Gardening is so much more difficult than she remembers as a child, then again, she was gardening with her parents back then, maybe it really is this hard and she just needs help. She knows sour piñata weren't a thing when she was a child, there wasn't a reaper of sick piñata either… or Pester or horrible ruffians, loafers… things are very different from her memories.

Especially now more than ever.

She sighs again and slowly lays her back down onto the soft green grass below her to watch the sky, hands over her chest to try and calm her unsteady breathing, her nerves getting the better of her.

She can't help but feel disappointed. Probably the first person to ever be a bit upset that Dastardos hasn't shown up to reap the sick piñata in her garden.

The breeze blows the surrounding trees calmly, the distant echo of the canoñata firing piñata to parties quietly fades into a blur as MoonLily focuses on the music of the island. The wind sounding like a flute, the sound of chimes being played by water droplets on leaves, piano notes caused by mothdrops dancing and trying to catch the light from bulbs, a chello echoing out of tree trunks as piñata snore, tucked away into crooks and crannies until morning rises again, and a distant humming like a lullaby to lull frightened piñata to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Assistance has Arrived

Cautious.

Muggy.

His own breathing echoing around inside of his head.

His peripherals a spiral blur of reds and greys. He would probably have a better sense of direction and perception had his left eye not be blind, but at this particular moment he half wishes he was completely blind. What the hell kind of garden is this? **It's pathetic, it's sad, its…** actually not as bad as he was expecting now that he can see it from the top of the sand dunes. Low level gardeners always get just that little bit of pitty from him deep down in his core being somewhere. He slows down his pace even more, quietly humming, mumbling the words to a song he's half forgotten to a tune fumbled and torn by time.

His sight locks onto the sickly pale green whirlm at the far end of the garden.

Wait… a whirlm? A **whirlm?** How do you let a WHIRLM get sick? This gardener is laying with their sick whirlm, there is no sign of the doctor on his way. Oh no. This poor little low level doesn't have the money for the doc do they? There is no way they could stop him from taking their piñata's life candy away. Oh no. Why does this happen as often as it does? Doesn't the doctor have that one free visit when he shows up to a garden for the first time? This garden is not familiar to him, then again his memory is that of a leaky bucket. Despite his ability to defy gravity, he feels his chest start to sink, his lips frown and brow furrow. In all honesty, he doesn't want to do this, **but it's him or the piñata.**

His thoughts lessen their intensity as he crosses over that white lined border of the garden. The sooner he gets this over with the better. Please don't start crying, just don't notice him, he's going to get the life candy and **leave.**

 **Fuck she sees him. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.**

"Oh, um… hi..?"

Well, at least she hasn't started screaming, that's good. He ignores her, get the life candy, then get out of here, that's his focus, that's his goal. She's talking at him but he's not listening, get the candy, **break the piñata, break it, rip it open and throw it's lifeless body aside, reap the spoils of it's lost soul, break it, destroy it.**

" **Excuse me."**

He pauses for a moment as the gardener stands between him and his **prey.** His hand twitches and then tightens his grip over his whacking stick aggressively.

"I need to talk to you."

She sounds frustrated, he's heard this all before, pleads and begs of mercy for their piñata. He floats to the side and attempts to go around her. She moves into the way again. **Fine. He'll stare her down, looking through the gardener completely. She'll move out of the way eventually, he knows she can't stop him, he knows she knows she can't stop him. Foolish girl.**

"Look," she sighs heavily, suddenly finding that all her words are avoiding her. He can see the fear in her eyes, she's petrified. Go ahead, he's a patient man, try and talk your way out this situation you've gotten yourself into, **it'll do nothing for you.**

"There's, well um, there's something… weird happening with a sour here… and…"

Wait what? He blinks a few times, a momentary expression of confusion moulds onto his mask before returning to an emotionless state to the best of his ability given the circumstances. What has a sour got to do with stopping him from reaping your piñata? He remains quietly murmuring his song to keep the ill whirlm content and calm. **Not to worry poor little piñata, your pain will cease shortly.** He floats around the gardener, and she gets in his way again god fucking **damn it are you kidding me right now.**

"Please, I just want some answers," she pleads, keeping her tone as calm as she can manage, she holds a hand out towards him in a welcoming gesture. He very quickly backs away from her instinctively to be out of reach as if a touch would hurt him. She slowly retracts her hand after noticing his reaction as she continues, "I'll let you take my whirlm, but only after you answer my questions."

Despite her obvious fear of this floating sour corpse staring deeply into her soul, she is still as stubborn as ever and seems to have somehow conjured up the courage to stand tall between the reaper and her ill piñata. He takes a glance at the whirlm for a moment before returning his gaze right back at the low level and takes his time in looking her up and down. She's a hard worker, her mask has had some cracks in the past before, he notices the magical scaring still healing the wood, her feet uncovered by any socks or shoes, worn as a true Islander Gardener's feet would be with scuffs and dry mud, her mask animates the dark circles under her eyes, not much sleep shows dedication, her clothes covered in grass stains and dirt smudges. She's trying her hardest, he'll give her that. He closes his eyes to take a slow, deep inhale and holds it in an attempt to pause his thought process to have clearer thinking. Of course it doesn't work completely but, he is able to come to the conclusion that he will at least listen to the questions, his pity for the low level gardener and his guilt for being the one to take away her beloved piñata from her being the driving force behind this decision.

He slowly exhales, and as he does so he sinks to the ground just as slowly until his toes gently brush the grass beneath him. He crosses his legs, floating above the ground and slowly opens his eyes again, he rests the palm of his right boney hand to the side of his twisted mask's cheek and leans his elbow against his knee, absentmindedly twirling his whacking stick around in the air with his free hand. His scarf also gets comfy on the ground beneath him, it wants to listen in too.

He hears her let out a sigh of relief, he hadn't noticed she was holding her breath until now.

"Thank you," she breathes out her words with a small smile. She seems to be under the impression that he'll actually answer her. **How naive.**

She does her best to explain the sour sherbat situation, and despite his expression and lack of response, he is actually just as interested in this little sherbat as she seems to be. He is a bit unsure on how to feel about her unusual approach to sours, but it's not the first time he's come across a gardener like this though. He understands the reasoning behind it, but it still never fails to come as a surprise when he finds a gardener that goes out of their way to treat **every** piñata kindly.

"So," she questions with an unsure expression and slightly growing nervousness at how quiet Dastardos has been, "do you… know anything about… why um… why any of this, is happening? With the halo and the sleeping, and why it's acting so… unlike how a sour piñata normally would?"

He lifts his head off of his palm, stretches his arms up above his head, his legs untangle themselves and makes his body look like a backwards 'C'. Every bone in his body making a horrible cracking sound as he stretches back, trailing from his fingertips down his spine to his toes. He can't help but snicker at the cringe he gets from the gardener in response to his bones cracking back into place.

"Yeah, I know," he yawns out the words as he slowly returns to his usual stance. His voice sounds hoarse and raspy as if he has screamed loud enough to tear his own voice box in the past, yet his humming and mumbled singing is smooth like water running gently over stones into a pool of crystal clear dew, shimmering and calming with ripples that flow and shift in his songs, quite the contrast to his speaking voice. The gardener was clearly not expecting his voice to sound quite like the way it does, but she won't say anything of it and waits for him to continue.

He slowly attempts to float around her, he answered her question, yes he does know, now leave him alone, **no don't you dare get in the way- SHE IS IN THE WAY AGAIN YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME SERIOUSLY STOP TALKING TO ME THIS IS AN ABNORMAL LENGTH OF CONVERSATION WITH ME I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS.**

"Okay, that's good. I'm glad you do, can you tell me?" She questions him nervously, does she not know how much he doesn't want to be here? Is she just stupid or stubborn?

"No," he growls, being agitated that she is continuing to badgecicle him.

"Why?" She snaps back at him, probably annoyed at his lack of cooperation. Her being unimpressed with him is making him even more agitated and being pushed just that little bit closer to the edge of complete rage. His mask animates his expression, brow furrows and nose crinkles, sharpened teeth being barred, and a flicker of red flashes in the glow of his eyes for a moment. He raises his jagged shoulders and his hand looks like it will break his weapon in half, knuckles white under the pressure. His scarf rises like a syrupent about to strike, making an aggressive hiss as if they were real. The almost animalistic response makes the gardener take another step back away from him, she does not want to seem like a threat to him. He slowly returns to a neutral expression, he didn't actually mean to scare her as much as he did, for a very short moment he contemplates apologizing to her, but giving an apology is unwillingly forced out of his thoughts as quickly as it had arrived.

There is an awkward silence now as they stare at one another, unsure of the other's next action.

"... I'm sorry," the gardener, that Dastardos still doesn't know the name of yet, speaks softly as if he were a wild piñata, "I just… I want to know, I want to understand what is happening… so if you know, could you please tell me?"

He takes another deep breath. It's not like he's being difficult purposefully. She doesn't understand, and she wants answers to something she is confused about. He can respect that. **Fine.** Fine, he'll elaborate.

"... It's… a bit confusing to explain," he slurs his words as he tries to recall the answers that she might be looking for. He slowly floats from side to side as if swaying his entire body with the cool breeze of the night will help him in his thought process. "But at the same time it's simple. The candy balances out the… uh… the… sweet to sour ratio for lack of a better term. Basically, a sour acts sour because it is... sour... and the candy makes it sweeter without getting rid of the sourness, it's happier, lighter thoughts manifest in a way that causes a little ring of light around their head, it looks like an angel's halo but its definitely not I can tell you that much, heheh. Oh, and the sweetness numbs the pain enough for them to sleep soundly, and they're not stupid, if you keep feeding it and taking care of it, it's gonna keep coming back… as for leaving your garden unharmed, well, it's not like it could make it look much worse than it already is."

"Pain?" Her voice soft and shaky, her mask expressing the same concern and worry in her voice. Her empathy for this poor little creature out waying her anger at the insult to her garden.

"Yeah, like your precious little piñata right now," he side eyes the whirlm that still remains ill not to far from him, "... **Well… not exactly but… heh… easy come easy go."**

"How do I help the sherbat? Please you have to-"

"Jack-o-lantern," he cuts her off as he floats around her for the final time, he has spent far too much time here as it is, someone might become suspicious. She seems confused about his answer, but she knows she has already pushed her luck so far. She stays out of his way, but walks beside him.

"Could I ask you more questions in the future?" It was a long shot, if she is smart she would be expecting a no, but he does know much more about sours than her, maybe she's just a dreamer.

" **Fuck no."** The words escape his mouth before he gets a chance to even think them over. She disappears into the blur of his peripherals as he hovers above the sick piñata, and with a breath he takes away the last from the tiny pale creature below him, striking it with a single swift blow to the abdomen, his eyes sparking to a bloody red filled with an unnatural twisted joy in cracking it in half and ripping the candy out of its shell like intestines out of a stomach, a soft, almost maniac giggle escapes his mouth. It's incredibly therapeutic to take his frustration out onto the ill pinata, a pathetic whirlm with a life **just as meaningless as the rest.** He doesn't **like** to, but it is a good stress relief.

He hears a quiet shaky sniffle to the left only a little bit behind him, the gardener's doing well in keeping herself together and not bursting into tears over her recently deceased piñata or out of fear of this horrible psychopath in her garden. His scarf slithers and scoops up the life candy amongst the carnage and appears to devour it.

He sighs solemnly, slowly returning to what he considers normal now from his crazed sour murder high and remains facing away from the gardener. He cuts her off again, but before she gets the chance to say anything this time, "maybe… focus on your garden first, then come talk to me." And with that he turns and begins his journey home. He can hear her following him to the edge of her garden.

"I know it doesn't look like it but I **am** trying to work on my garden. I just… I don't know what to do to make it better," her voice is stressed and just that little bit closer to crying.

He rubs his mask's temples and turns to point with his whacking stick at each part of her garden as he explains, "fertilize your plants, your buttercups will give more seeds and buds to feed to your bunnycombs for their romance dance, any extras you can harvest and sell. Become a master romancer of all the piñata you can, but only focus on one kind of piñata at a time so you can keep track of it all, and for the love of everything buy better **fucking** gardening tools."

He turns and leaves, picking up the pace even more as he follows the rarely used trail into the desert. He disappears behind the sand dunes before she sees him gone, being too busy trying to take note of what she's been told. He can hear her behind him make a remark of him "just disappearing". He half smiles, a mix of mischievous smirk and frustration with himself over being so childish. He needs to get home and be by himself for a **week** , that was far too much human interaction for him to handle in one sitting.

Though, it wasn't entirely horrible. Maybe it was just different so it scares and excites him at the same time, actually talking to someone and them wanting him to speak back to them, like a real conversation. He sighs and shakes his head disapprovingly at his own actions, mentally scolding himself as he proceeds to smack his forehead with the jagged and boney palms of his hands. Stupid, **stupid, STUPID.** He needs to make a plan if this happens again, he was completely taken off guard by that entire situation. He'll be ready next time, you can't get the best of Dastardos no siree.

He's extremely tired after all that social interaction though. Nap first, plan later. He lets himself go into autopilot as he drifts over the Dessert Desert sand that is cooling off quite quickly now that the night is getting later. He slips into the back exit of his home, which is simply a hole in the twisted root system that leads into the center of the hollow sour tree. Drifting through the single room, ducking out of the way of shelves and tattered curtains, he plants his mask, still attached to his face, directly into the mountain of pillows and other stolen soft items he uses as a bed, and almost immediately passes out, being left undisturbed by the sour piñata that roam freely in and out of the tree.


	3. Chapter 3: Good Morning

MoonLily scribbles down the instructions while she remembers them. Fertilizer, become a master romancer, and sell unneeded things to buy better tools. She flips to the page that she has her sour sherbat information on and she writes down that she needs a jack-o-lantern. She puts a few question marks next to it since she is a bit confused on what to do with it. Does she only need it in her garden? Does the sour need to eat it? How many does she need? Well, she won't be a true gardener if she doesn't figure out **some** things on her own… or at the very least, ask another person about it.

She closes her journal with determination and an enthusiastic grin. She can do this! She is going to save that sour sherbat from whatever pain it is in! She wipes away any tears that threaten to roll down her mask. She's upset that she had to sacrifice one of her piñata for knowledge, but she got so much more than she ever expected from Dastardos. Not only did he help her understand a little bit more about how sour piñata work, but he also told her how to save her little sour friend AND he even gave her some gardening tips! She can go talk to him more later on if she has more questions! She is ecstatic at the progress she's made with planning and gardening knowledge. She's going to have to thank him for his generous amounts of help if all of this works out for her.

Speaking of, she's curious about how he knows all of these gardening tricks. Does he have his own garden? Does he attract sour piñata to his garden like how she attracts sweet piñata to hers? She makes note of the questions to ask him so she doesn't forget. He really didn't like being here, he must be a very busy man so she will make sure to not waste too much of his time.

She figures the first thing she should look into is getting a jack-o-lantern for her sour friend, but she is also very interested in finding out more about fertilizer. She recalls her friend Leafos mentioning something about fertilizer a long while ago, and if fertilizer is good for plants than maybe Seedos will know a thing or to too.

She **would** ask Jardinero, but, he's not exactly the most friendly to her because of how low level of a gardener she is. He's always disappointed in her efforts but doesn't do or tell her anything to help her improve, he just boasts about how much better he was when he was a gardener and how he's glad she's not one of his own children since he's so appalled at her skill, or lack thereof. When he says off handed comments like that she tries her best to not let them get to her, and normally they don't, but sometimes the thought of her own parents looking down on her in the same way does keep her pacing at night. She knows Jardinero must mean well, but his words still leave a sting in her chest.

This won't halt her motivation though, no, it only makes it stronger. She will strive for greatness, and she **will** succeed! She will give her heart and soul, her blood, sweat and tears into this garden!

Being unable to get to sleep, she watches the nocturnal piñata go about their business around her garden. She hopes she doesn't have to dump her watering can onto any preztails that get a little too close for comfort to her bunnycomb hutch again, but she has it in hand anyway, just to be safe. She knows the piñata are only doing what is in their nature, which is why she won't go so far as to use her shovel to hit them, besides, spilling water on them tends to chase them away just fine for the most part.

It's at times like these that she finds herself making plans on how to better her garden to put into action in the morning, and as she paces around her garden and uses the suggestions from Dastardos, that's exactly what she does. Even though she enjoys being a bit spontaneous, she knows she works best with some form of guideline or reminders of what she wants to get done or work towards.

Some time goes on and she pauses her planning for a moment as she notices the light of the moon directly above her, smiling down upon her garden in the cool, calmness of the night. She smiles back up at it. She recalls her father's admiration for the moon, and how silly he would be sometimes, howling with his mallowolves for fun. She's a little embarrassed that she wants to howl right now too, due to the memory of her younger self and her father howling with big grins, her mother would always shake her head and sigh at the shenanigans that ensued, but MoonLily and her father knew she secretly loved the silliness. She decides not to howl, feeling it would be a bit strange just on her own. She'll have a Mallowolf of her own one day, then she will be silly with the moon like her father used to be. She watches the night sky with the stars sprinkled onto the dark blue like sequins in silk as the gentle clouds drift softly with the wind. She sighs with a smile up at the beauty as she reminiscences.

Only a short while passes before she returns to her pacing, holding her journal to her chest as she hums the Island's songs of the night. Some of the piñata even join her in the humming with their own murmurs and chirps. She can't help but smile at the passing piñata that sing with her, she just loves it here so much, she can't imagine living anywhere else in the world.

She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with the frigid air of the night, closing her eyes to hear and feel the magic around her. She carefully sits down, leaning her back against the bunnycomb hutch as the early morning fog rolls down from the piñarctic, sending a chilling shiver over her garden and through the village, the tips of grass and leaves speckled white with frost. MoonLily's bunnycombs dare to bound outside into the cold cracks of dawn, and snuggle up with their gardener to say good morning with cold little nose kisses on her arms and mask. The tired MoonLily can't help but giggle in response to her bunnycombs' tickly good morning kisses, and gives them kisses on their foreheads in return. As the sun yawns and stretches up and out from behind the tree tops, so does MoonLily from behind the hutch, ready to start another day.

After chasing off the last of the Preztails for the morning, she figures the sun was awake long enough for the village to start waking up as well. She has already been given the speech on bothering people at the crack of dawn by her caretaker when she was in her early teens. She figures she could go see Leafos to ask her about fertilizer and how to get a jack-o-lantern. Leafos isn't always right, but she at least knows a bit of something about everything, and that's still a little bit more than MoonLily knows, and so she figures it's a good place to start.

With her journal by her side and a spring in her step, she starts to prance her way up the village path, only to slow down after remembering how early it is, there's no rush, and loud footsteps might wake some people up.

The golden light and warmth of the sun shimmers and glows over the small village and melts the morning frost into dew again. MoonLily gives a small wave and a big grin to Gretchen as she sees her outside of her store. She gets a cool and relaxed wave in return from the huntress' extra pair of hands as her own seem to be occupied with a piñata filled crate. Gretchen pushes her store's door open and escapes inside to relax after a successful capture in the night, not having enough time for conversation. Gretchen is so elegant, and strong, MoonLily wishes she knew as much about gardening as Gretchen does about tracking. She's so smart, so wise, and she knows how to show it too. MoonLily sighs softly, maybe one day she'll be as good as Gretchen. No. One day she WILL be as good as Gretchen. She smiles to herself and continues down the village path.

Willy is sitting outside his store having breakfast while Lottie is restocking her shelves with the morning delivery of goods. MoonLily waves to them joyfully and gets a tired but welcoming wave from them both in response. Patch is inside his medical clinic, and Petula is asleep at her store counter, neither can see MoonLily wave to them, but she does so regardless. Fannie is out for a jog around the village, and is the one to wave to MoonLily first, giving a cheerful "gooooood morning!" on her way past. MoonLily giggles quietly and waves just as cheerfully in response, calling out a good morning to her in return.

She can see the hill that looks down upon Jardinero's old garden, Dastardos' twisted tree haunting the edge like a phantom of the garden's very soul. Her smile falters for a moment, this garden was once so beautiful, so full of life, and love, joyful memories were made by so many people and piñata there, a family was made and raised there. Now it's barren, broken, covered in dust and old junk, it's a garden grave now, and it always makes her feel so much sorrow. A chill runs down her spine and her gaze slowly stares into the darkness of the dead tree, she can hardly see anything in there, it's unclear to her if her eyes are playing tricks or if she really can see silhouettes of the sour piñata crawling around in the roots and tunnels of the witch doctor's home like centipedes under stones. The feeling of dread in her chest grows as she swears she is actually being watched by the tree itself, letter lone whatever might be hiding inside.

"Ah! Salutations MoonLily my dear!"

The gardener let's out a startled squeak and fumbles with her journal, almost dropping it right onto the ground. Luckily, her old family friend caught it in his hat before that happened. "Oh! Why, I am terribly sorry there Miss Mily, I had no intentions of scaring you," Bartholomew gives a cheeky smile and raises a brow towards the gardener. "Head off in the clouds again I see?"

She smiles goobaaishly, her mask cheeks becoming flush and warm as she rubs the back of her head with one hand and retrieves her journal with the other. "Uh, kinda?" she questions as if she herself is unsure, "um, thank you for catching my journal, even though you nearly made me drop it in the first place." She gives a small embarrassed chuckle and Bart places his hat back onto his head.

"Ah, again, my apologies," he crosses his arms over his chest and stands comfortably next to the gardener he's had to care for until she was big enough to handle herself. His smile fades quickly off his mask, his expression turns cold and harsh and he takes a step forward, analysing MoonLily in a moments notice. She nervously takes a step back, holding her journal close to her chest, she knows exactly what's wrong, a tinkerers eyes see every tiny detail of every single thing.

"My goodness, you haven't slept have you? And when was the last time you washed your hair, or brushed it even? Have you bathed **at all** please tell me you have."

"W-well… I uh.."

Bart's hat shades his mask as it animates the disappointment in his expression. He slowly shakes his head and lowers his gaze even more before closing his eyes to sigh out some of the pent up frustration forming in his throat, "MoonLily, you know we've discussed this! If you wish to be an excellent gardener then you must take just as much care of yourself as you do everything else!"

"I know, I know, I'm sorry," she sighs as her heart sits in her stomach, Bart always knew how to let her know she was in trouble without ever having to raise his voice, "I just get so excited and distracted I keep forgetting about stuff like that… oh! Speaking of…" MoonLily eagerly opens her journal to show Bart the progress she's made. "I have a plan! Do you want to see?"

He sighs again, heavier this time, and shakes his head slightly at the thought of **another** plan from her for her garden. He tilts his head up enough to see her beaming smile and bright purple eyes sparkling with joy up at him, a mask he simply can't stay grumpy at. The corners of his mouth betray him by curving up into a small smile at her. Despite her age, she's still just a child to him.

"Oh... alright," he adjusts his hat and closes his eyes, defeated by the barkbark eyes he's getting from MoonLily, "why don't you elaborate on this grand plan of yours over breakfast. I know you haven't had any yet. Come on, let's go," he gestures to follow him as he turns and begins to saunter over to his wagon. MoonLily happily bounces after him, she is sure she can talk to Leafos later on in the day, after all, Bart is kind of like an uncle to her really, and she is extremely excited to talk about all that she's learnt so far. Plus, free breakfast!

After being inside for a moment preparing the aforementioned breakfast, MoonLily and Bart sit down on the staircase leading up into the colourful wooden wagon that Bart calls home, with buttered toast and warm drinks. MoonLily joyfully explains all about her plan on finding the best fertilizer, becoming a master romancer, trying to get a jack-o-lantern and to figure out what to do with it to save her sour sherbat friend. Bart nods politely in understanding throughout the conversation, listening to her enthusiasm explode out from her heart.

"My my, it seems you have been quite busy indeed," Bart takes a sip of his drink before continuing, "who gave you the idea to do all of this?"

MoonLily's heart practically stopped right then and there for a moment or so as she tries to think up something other than telling her old caretaker that she took advice from the reaper of piñata.

"Um… a new, friend?" She nervously takes a sip of her drink, glancing at the roof of the sour chimney she can see poking up over the hill.

Bart raises a brow in suspicion, but plays along anyway, "a new friend huh? Well then, you will have to introduce me to them. What's their name?"

"Uuuum…"

"Heh heh heh…" he chuckles quietly and takes another sip from his mug, "I see… interesting name they have."

MoonLily lightly pushes Bart's shoulder, her expression grumpy and embarrassed, her voice cracking a bit like a squeaky door, "no! Their name isn't 'um' I just… I don't remember their name, okay?"

"Haha, perhaps you should have written it down like everything else you find out," Bart laughs through a cheeky grin and gets another shove to his shoulder. He laughs again, "hahaha! Oh alright, alright… you keep it up and I'll fall off the edge here, and well, I won't be able to help you with your jack-o-lantern if that happens."

"Oh?" MoonLily's eyes light up and she leans a bit closer to him, "you can help me get a jack-o-lantern? How?"

Bart gives a wink and pokes MoonLily on the nose with his index finger, "get yourself a pumpkin and I'll show you."

MoonLily gasps softly as if she has just had an epiphany, coming to the realization on what she needs to do to get a jack-o-lantern to save her sour friend. She grins from ear to ear and gives Bart a huge hug, thanking him over and over. He gives a hearty laugh and pats her back, sighing softly.

"Of course my dear, I'm always happy to be of assistance."


	4. Chapter 4: Blind Emotion

Well, well...

How very interesting…

The strange gardener from last night seems rather close to the Tinkerer. She seems rather close to that journal of hers as well.

Dastardos gives an almost silent laugh, it's more of a pleasant exhale really. He can't help but see a lot of his eldest little sister in this strange girl. Though he is half blind, so he's not going to let himself be fooled by his faulty vision. Everyone has ulterior motives. No one shows their true intentions here. They are all selfish and greedy, all of them, they just play pretend for the moral high ground.

His sight may be as disfigured as his mask, but his hearing is significantly more reliable, and although he can't pick up on everything the gardener and tinkerer are saying, the has learnt that the gardener is called MoonLily.

It takes him a while to realize that he has been spying on them, and figures he isn't all too comfortable with that. He has been a bit of a people watcher person but he isn't a creep. He slowly floats away from the door to distract himself with other things. Before he has the chance to find his own distraction, a distraction lands on his head. He freezes, not wanting to move or startle whatever creature is now tangled up in his hair. Its shrieks alone make it clear to him that it is a sour sherbat. He reaches up and plucks the small bat piñata from his head to inspect it, only to receive a scream right in his mask. He instinctively holds the loud bat away from him, his ears ring for a few seconds. This sherbat sure is strange.

Those words in his brain spark a light and the cogs that are usually choked up by a tight sour grip begin to click and turn. Huh, well, he wonders if this sherbat may be Mily's little visitor. He ponders how he could possibly figure out if it is.

The sherbat's ears flick and turn rapidly trying to listen to each and every sound it can possibly hear around it, other sours crawling and clawing, prowling and growling, the wind shifting the tree causing eerie creaks and shudders, a quiet ghostly whisper through the entwined branches and roots. The sherbat tries to hear it all, but for some reason, it keeps squawking every now and then, right up at Dastardos. Such a strange thing for it to be doing, unless, it can't see properly and is attempting to use its echolocation to its advantage, but the blind sherbat myth was debunked years ago. Suppose this Sherbat may be a part of the small few that hold the myth true.

The sherbat must be from the outer reaches of the island where the Wild Variants roam. A wild variant is a piñata that looks more like their animal inspiration than their piñata self, and can be found most commonly on the outskirts of Piñata Island which many rumour has to do with the island's magic being thinner, thus causing the piñata to look more like their animal counterparts than cartoons. Rumours aside, it seems more like a very rare piñata with many wildcards rather than a variant to a skeptic like Dastardos. The bat's ears are more oval in shape than a standard sherbat, its wings larger and it's face more of an orb than a box, with a little nose and a fluffy chest, and eyes sharp in shape, but dull in colour, like a grey fog is gathered in the acid green glow of the sherbat's eyes. It would be quite cute for a sour without it's lengthy fangs that curve down from its upper jaw like a pair of deadly needles.

Dastardos gives it a gentle pat on the head, and receives a content nuzzle in return. The bat rubbing its face all over his hand as if his boney fingers were scratching an itch it couldn't quite reach on its own. It sniffs his hand often as if to keep checking that it is the same hand as before, and that it is a friendly hand that would not harm it. **Silly little sour, it is safe here.**

In an instant, the sherbat's focus suddenly turns to outside, ears pricked up and faced directly towards a distant laugh. Before Dastardos gets a chance to try and look to see what has caught the sherbat's attention, it struggles, screeches and wiggles its way out of his hands and onto the floor with a thud. Dastardos, clearly taken back by surprise at the sherbat's sudden drop, floats backward a bit out of caution, but quickly regains focus to lean down and try and see if the little sour is alright.

 **What the hell is the matter with this guy?** Dastardos frowns as the bat flails until it stands itself up and flies quickly out of the tree before he could have the chance to check on it. Instinctively, he tracks the sherbat with his eyes, and wouldn't you know it, it lands at the feet of the gardener he suspected it would. That embodiment of a dunce-cap, MoonLily.

He can see she was on her way to Leafos and Father's house when the sherbat caught her attention. She seems surprised but pleased to see it, and she even pets it. She holds her hand out to feed it a candy and Dastardos grips his scarf out of nervousness and anticipation over whether the sour will rip her hand to shreds or not. **A part of him really wants it to, another part really, really doesn't.**

A sigh of both relief and disappointment escapes his lips as the sherbat simply eats the candy, and leaves her hand in one piece. She gives it another few pats and talks to it as if it can understand what she's saying. It squawks back up at her almost as if it were talking, but it's fairly clear that the piñata is demanding another sweet rather than responding to the conversion. She talks to it anyway and excitedly tells it of how she's going to help it feel better. She even lifts it up into her arms to hold it and cuddle it. The display is so cute it makes his stomach churn. The sherbat doesn't seem too impressed by the affection, but it puts up with it in exchange for sweets.

It's almost as if she's trained it. But that's not possible, the only person who can train sours is Dastardos, and him alone. Not even Pester has any control over them.

Dastardos thinks for a moment. He is certainly curious about the sour and this gardener, he supposes he could spy for a while, but only a while, he's not a creep.

He watches MoonLily feed the sour until it gains it's halo and it curls up asleep in her arms. Not exactly the most interesting thing, but she does carry it around as if she owns it. **Heh, stupid girl, cradling a sour as if it were a lap barkbark. It's going to bite her one day, then we'll see how eager she is to help it, love it, care for it.**

 **Save it.**

He blinks a few times, bringing his focus back to the world and out of the spiralling and crawling thoughts of his mind. MoonLily had made her way to his old home and knocks on the door politely. She looks nervous, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, scuffing her feet on the house's footpath a little, her focus on the ground as she does this. He sees her tuck the sleeping sour sherbat onto her shoulder underneath her neck scarf. **Ah ha, there it is.** She must be nervous to be seen with a sour. He knew it! There's always some twist in people's words and something different in their thoughts to their actions.

He scoffs, a smug smirk from being right mixed with a gut disappointment from the tiny speck of hope that someone actually did truly care about each and every living creature.

His smile faded when he saw his father creak the door open. Jardinero's mask went from a greeting smile to a dull look of disappointment when he answered the door to see MoonLily. Despite not being able to see her expression, he can tell her nervousness went from a 6 to a solid 12. **She's nervous because she's talking to Father, of course she wouldn't want to be seen with a sour by him.** The little flicker of hope is rekindled, but now he's anxious. Jardinero tells MoonLily something before closing the door on her, she clearly wanted to speak more, her hand up as if to try and stop the door from closing, but she didn't dare touch it. She stays there for a few moments, sort of frozen in thought before she turns to leave. Dastardos feels completely numb as he watches her walk down the path and stop right at the edge of the old garden. No thoughts going through his head, no emotion in his chest or gut, he simply stays afloat in the air, a gentle breeze flows through his tree to push and pull his hair like the silver foam on waves. He's been on the receiving end of his father's gaze of disappointment ever since Sidos was born. Slowly but surely, a lump forms in his throat, his chest becomes heavy again and his head feels sharp. Empathy. **Poor pathetic little girl.** He doesn't even know what Jardinero said to her, right now he doesn't even care.

He wants.

He wants to.

He doesn't know what he wants to do.

He doesn't know what to do and it frustrates him. He absentmindedly grips his hair with one of his hands to tug at his scalp, as if to pull his mind in a direction that would be useful to him instead of having each thought drowned out under waves of red and black ink.

What is he doing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. **And it is infuriating.** He grips another fistful of hair on the other side of his head to tug his brain in the opposite direction, his thoughts bouncing around and making his hands tug from one side to the other. He **hates** this feeling. He needs to **do something.** **Why can't he do anything.**

What is she doing? His focus locks onto the low level gardener again. He watches her take slow steps through the old garden. She seems to be taking in the sore sorry sight. His hands slowly let his hair go as he watches her, his tight grip turning to a gentle combing, through his hair and over his scalp, his fingertips separating the knots, brushing away loose strands and flaking away the dandruff.

MoonLily's gaze is glassy, her mouth open ever so slightly and her eyebrows curved in sorrow and distress. She is clearly lost in thought as she traces her fingertips over the shattered piñata homes and withered tree stumps. She gently moves her neck scarf to pet the top of the sour sherbat's head as a way to release some stress.

"Was… this place once your home?" She whispers to the sherbat, but stings Dastardos once he hears it. It **was** his home once. It was glorious, so full of colour and life. Now it. Well. He looks down at himself, at his hands, thin and bony, dry and reminiscent of a corpse much like the garden. The lump in his throat grows, his chest upgrading from heavy to pain filled, his mouth as dry as the cracked ground MoonLily walks on. Wouldn't that hurt? Standing barefoot on the hot concrete that is now the garden floor.

MoonLily halts in her slow pacing when she glances at Dastardos's tree and notices the glowing eyes watching her. He freezes as well, knowing that all she can see is his eyes doesn't make him any less unsure of himself. He gives a confused squint when she manages to force a small smile and gives him a tiny wave. She looks around to check to see if she's being watched by anyone else before she takes a few more steps closer to his tree.

She keeps her voice down, either to not be heard by others or to not wake the sherbat, Dastardos doesn't know.

"Hi, are you okay?"

 **What?** His confused squint becoming more exaggerated, he even throws in a head tilt. His first thought is no, no he is not okay, but he's just so confused as to why she's trying to talk to him again that he simply blinks a few times, lost for words. Why is **she** asking **him** if **he's** okay? It should be the other way around right? Something is obviously wrong but he still remains unable to say anything to her just yet.

She shifts nervously as she continues, "um… I have a quick question, I promise I'll leave you alone afterwards. I know you must be really busy so I won't be too long."

Wow, she thinks he's busy? Doing what? Reaping piñata?

Well, actually it would probably seem like that from the outside wouldn't it?

He sighs quietly, folds his arms over his chest and floats a bit closer to listen. Her smile looks less forced and the light in her eyes seems to be returning. He's almost flattered that he has that kind of impact on someone, he is genuinely curious of what she wants to ask. As usual, nothing about him shows it.

"It's about this little guy here, I know you said I need a jack-o-lantern but I would like to know, is it just one that I need or… maybe two or three?"

He chuckles quietly to himself, "just the one… and you'd better get out of here unless you have enough candy to tame all of these guys too." He gestures to all the sour pinata around him that are becoming increasingly more and more interested in this stranger near their home. She backs away a little from the multiplying eyes glowing in the darkness of the tree, her smile shaking and curving a bit.

"Okay, thank you. Goodbye," she stumbles over her words quickly as she backs away towards the swamp. She doesn't turn her back to the sours until there is something she can put between herself and the tree, but right before she turns away she pauses and smiles right up at him, "I'm MoonLily, by the way… it was really nice to meet you."

He's silently impressed that she knew to not turn her back to the sour piñata, but his focus was on her words. They seem genuine, yet extremely hard to believe. Even if they were a lie, which it most likely is considering no one in the history of the island has ever been happy to see him, they made the pain in his chest calm itself, and the lump in his throat shrink. Okay girl, fine, you've proven yourself interesting enough for his time. He'll put a tiny bit of effort into this. Whatever **this** even is.


	5. Chapter 5: Anyone Home?

Knock knock knock.

MoonLily tucks her little sherbat friend into her neck scarf again to be safe and warm. The sour is quietly cuddling her shoulder and making tiny peeps and murmurs as it rests, the occasional gentle nibble on her scarf, dreaming of food most likely. Mily is still a little paranoid of being followed by a small army and keeps glancing behind herself to check for red and black stalkers lurking around the old garden. She notices the glowing eyes piercing the darkness of the twisted tree, still watching her quietly from a distance. She is a little unnerved, but Dastardos is a friend, he must be watching out for her to make sure she's safe. She smiles at him regardless of her inability to see what his response might be.

Her attention is brought to the door that carefully creeks open in the slightest, the chain lock still in place and keeping it from being open wide enough for more than an eye to peak through.

"Who is it?" the voice behind the door questions. They sound nervous, but not Doctor Patchingo levels of anxiety. The grey-violet eyes light up upon seeing the bright flowery mask smiling down at them.

"Good morning Seedos, it's me again," Mily cheerfully greets him with her signature big grin and a small wave. She speaks to him as he fiddles with the lock to get the door open, "I hope I didn't wake you, are you busy?"

"Well, yes, but you didn't wake me don't worry," Seedos, after finally getting the door open, adjusts the glasses on his mask and gestures for her to come inside, "actually, I was just about to start polishing my seeds! You came just in time to help organize them into the different needed polish, temperature and shine categories!"

Mily enters the little swamp cottage, wiping her feet on the mat made of moss so she doesn't track in mud and other bits and pieces her feet may have picked up off the ground before she heads in. "Can I actually help this time or by help do you still mean 'watch you do everything because I'm not allowed to touch the seeds?'" she gives a cheeky smile, referring to the scolding she got from the younger plant enthusiast about actually trying to help him before.

"The second one," Seedos responds as he trots over to his shelved cabinet that covers the entire wall, filled with bright bubbly bouncing seeds, each with their own little pillow and heat pack or ice cube, a little light or veil, each catered to their own individual seedie needies with the utmost love and care. So much time and effort is put into each little seed to ensure they're happy and healthy, it always blows MoonLily away each time she sees Seedos' setup, it's so impressive. His entire home is designed to care and accommodate these seeds rather than Seedos himself. Mily sits down on one of his beanbags in the corner of his main living space and sits her journal in her lap. She likes to take notes of the different needs of the seeds to make sure she's taking the best care of her plants as she can, Seedos doesn't seem to mind and even gets excited to answer her questions and talk about seeds and plants all day long with her. They've become quite close because of their shared interests.

"So," Seedos starts to gently pick up specific seeds and carry them in the palm of both his hands to set them down into groups while he speaks, taking unnecessary caution with them as he travels from one side of the room to the other, "do you have more questions about sunflowers? You know I'm always happy to answer any questions at all."

Mily smiles but shakes her head, "I know, and thank you but that's all fine and dandy for now. I actually wanted to ask you about fertilizer."

"Oh? Fertilizer?" he looks over his shoulder at her for a moment before pushing his glasses back up the nose of his mask again to continue his sorting, "well ask away! Fertilizer is one of the best things on the island if you use it right, after a watering can of course. I don't know a single seed who doesn't like fertilizer! It helps them all grow to be big and strong and to give back even more seeds into the world!"

"Well it does sound pretty great," Mily shifts a bit in her beanbag, it seems she is slowly sinking further and further into it, "I'd love to know how to use it right… there are so many different types and it all seems so intimidating to go through and figure out what each one does…"

Seedos throws his head back in a loud laugh that leaves Mily a little confused. "Oh, oh dear," he breathes the words out through small bursts of giggles, "aw Mily it's really not that hard. Honestly, heh heh." He wipes away the tears from the corners of his eyes and waves her over, "come here, let me show you." It takes a little while before Seedos looks back at Mily again to see her stuck in the beanbag, struggling to get up.

She smiles goobaaishly at him, "uh, I'll be there in a sec… just gotta… um..." she keeps trying to get up, but to no avail. Seedos has another laugh before heading over and giving her a hand up. He shakes his head at her and leads her back over to where he's been sorting his seeds.

Mily gives a little wave to the seeds and speaks as if they could hear her, "hi guys."

"Hi Mily," Seedos responds, talking for the seeds as if they were tiny sentient beings that only he could hear. His smile is huge, especially with that mask of his. He always gets excited whenever he can teach MoonLily something new. He continues speaking for himself once again, "I'm going to show you how easy it is to figure out the right fertilizer for the right seed, okay?"

Mily nods, journal at the ready.

He poofs a packet of red fertilizer into existence, reaches into the packet and scoops up a bit with his finger, "now, watch this carefully, Mily, its important." MoonLily leans a bit closer as she watches him lay his finger down next to a bluebell seed. She squints, trying to figure out what she's supposed to be watching. Seedos moves his finger a bit closer to the seed, "do you see?" Sadly no, Mily doesn't. She tilts her head and tries to spot what Seedos is talking about. "Look, are you watching? Make sure you're paying close attention to the bluebell," Seedos moves his finger away, and then closer to the seed again. Now she sees it. Each time Seedos brings the red fertilizer to the bluebell seed it leans away from it, it doesn't want anything to do with it.

"The sees looks like... it doesn't like it," Mily comments, a bit unsure if her speculation is accurate.

Seedos nods, "yes! That's right! Now look," he takes the red fertilizer to a poppy seed and the seed nearly leaps up into his hand. Mily is a bit startled by the seed's sudden burst of energy.

"Wow! That guy likes it that's for sure…" she giggles at the seed quietly as it starts to click in her brain, "oh… are the different colours of fertilizer for the different colours of seeds?"

Seedos wipes off the fertilizer onto his pants and with his clean hand rubs the back of his head, "well, almost… the flower seeds like the colour that matches their flowers, but the tree and bush seeds like the fertilizer that matches their fruit. But do you see how it's not all that complicated?" Mily nods, she takes note of the flower and fruit colour tip, a little embarrassed that she was thinking far too much on the whole situation.

"Thank you Seedos, this was really helpful, I'll make sure I remember all this, it seems easy enough now," she smiles and has a small nervous laugh, "and here I was going to Leafos for help with fertilizer, I should have come to you all along! Ha ha, heh… I might have skipped seeing Jardinero entirely if that were the case…" Her smile is more forced and her eyes reflect her inner pain for a split moment. Seedos frowns and sighs quietly, taking a bit of time to think of the right thing to say. He knows his father is very much a tough love sort of person, and his boasting and self centered mindset can be hurtful at times… but he is also extremely, unnecessarily rude towards MoonLily, generally because she's a lower level gardener, which apparently means she is yet to prove that she should be respected. It doesn't help that she was a helper for a very long time, and Jardinero has made it clear what he thinks of helpers ever since Lester. Not that MoonLily knows much about that, she just tries her best to see the bright side of things.

Mily feels a bump at her ankle, and looks down to see a very happy quartet of Shellybeans at her feet, all climbing up on one another to try and crawl up her legs and say hello. It took them this long to get across the room to her, but are all very happy to have gotten her attention. Mily gives a little giggle at the paper snails and sits down for them to climb into her lap, "hello again everyone! Have you bean well?" She lifts up a particularly enthusiastic Shellybean, who gives happy nuzzles and squeaks towards the gardener. She recognizes this one to be her Shellybean she unsoured not too long ago, she figured they would be much better taken care of by Seedos than in her garden, and Seedos was happy to have them join his Shelly family. "Yes it's good to see you again too," she nuzzles her nose against the piñata in return.

Mily feels a comforting hand on her shoulder as she happily talks to the shellybeans, telling them all how lovely their shells are looking today, and how bright and beautiful their eyes are. She eventually brings her attention to Seedos again, smiling up at him from her spot on the floor with the fuzzy paper snails. She seems alright now that she is holding an armful of piñata. Seedos gives a little sigh, smiles politely in return and drops the subject previously mentioned moments before. He lets her snuggle the snails as he goes back to his work of scrubbing the seeds to make them shine.

"Well, it's been really nice spending time here, as always," Mily gives a last big cuddle to the shellybeans, "but I should be going back to my garden, can't be away for too long you know, something might happen without me."

"and we can't have that happening now can we?" Seedos chuckles and waves her goodbye. "I expect to see some big beautiful buttercups the next time I'm around!"

"Ha ha! Gosh you know I'll try my best Seedos. Thank you again!" Mily calls out once more over her shoulder as she opens the door to leave. She is told she is welcome through the shellybean squeaks behind her, and she nods as she closes the door.

She's glad her little sour friend was quiet as he slept on her shoulder. She gently pats his head as she makes her way out of the swamp and towards the village.

A loud screeching caw interrupts the peaceful quiet and makes Mily jump higher than a doenut, waking the sour sherbat in the process. It screeches in retaliation and starts to flap its wings despite being wrapped up under her neck scarf. MoonLily hushes and coos with gentle pats to try and soothe the sherbat as she looks around for the source of the noise.

A sour crowla, sitting up high, directly above MoonLily in one of the outskirting trees of the swamp.

She sighs quietly, a bit embarrassed she got spooked by the bird piñata. She looks over at Dastardos's house, she could have sworn she heard a quiet laugh when she jumped, but she can't see any eyes watching her in the darkness. Perhaps it was just her imagination. Nevertheless she begins her trek back to her garden.

She gets to the village path before noticing that her sour sherbat is very upset again. His ears locked on something in the trees and he occasionally screams at whatever is bothering him now that Mily has noticed something is wrong. She rubs his ears gently, and speaks softly to him, reassuring him that everything is alright. It's the sour crowla again, still following behind them.

She gives the sherbat a sweet to nibble on to keep him quiet as she tucks him away again before entering the village.

The crowla still follows, flying from rooftop to rooftop, watching the gardener like a red feathered shadow in the sky. It was certainly unnerving. Has Dastardos sent it to spy on her? And if so, is that a good or a bad thing?

Well of course it wouldn't be a bad thing, that doesn't make sense. Dastardos is a friend, maybe the crowla is doing this on its own, and if it really was sent by Das then it must have been to watch over her and keep her safe.

Right? Right.

MoonLily returns to her garden and is relieved to find it how she left it. It's always a bit of a 50/50 when she leaves her garden for a while as to whether it's the same when she comes back.

She lets her little sour friend down from her shoulder so he can spread his wings and stretch. Strangely enough, it continues to stay rather than flying away like usual. Its ears are locked onto the sour crowla that has yet to enter the garden. The red bird simply patrols around the border and sits in various trees overlooking the garden. The sherbat is obviously overly protective of its sweets supplier, and stays suspicious of the other sour securing the area.

This little sour standoff lasts for the next few days and nights while MoonLily gets herself a pumpkin seed and tries getting the hang of using fertilizer.

An alert buzzes to get her attention around midday later that week. A sour crowla has visited her garden. Of course, she knew it would eventually but now she's nervous, her sour sherbat has been guarding the garden as if this other sour was dangerous. She won't lie, it's been great having the sherbat here, but the other piñata are all very frightened of him. She looks behind herself, and at her feet is the bear-trap with wings itself. How it managed to get so far into her garden confused and frightened her. Regardless, now that she knows sours are existing in constant discomfort she will do her best to help this guy too. She crouches down to be a bit closer to him, which in hindsight she probably shouldn't have done. She slowly holds out the back of her hand to it, to show she means it no harm. The crowla tilts it head a few time, but that's all it got to do as the sour sherbat drops out of the sky and lands harshly on the ground between the gardener and crowla. He fluffs his paper up to look bigger, stretches his abnormally huge wings and flaps angrily, squawking at the other sour piñata near his gardener. Such a strange little sour… the crowla doesn't like that attitude very much, they are here for candy as well. They fluff up like the sherbat, chattering their beak and stomping their feet. Both of the sour's eyes turn red, their rumbles and growls like a battle drum at war. They rear their heads back and begin to quake the ground around them.

They were both very upset about being covered in water shortly afterwards. MoonLily puts her watering can away and declares in a harsh tone, "There will be no fights in my garden, thank you."

The sour crowla, after stumbling a little, shakes itself dry and flies away in a huff, it'll come back later on for candy. The sherbat however is once again being very strange. It's in a panic, flailing itself around unable to calm down enough to stand. Its shriek like screaming shattering the air as it rolls and flaps, kicking its legs.

MoonLily immediately begins to worry. Did she hurt it? She didn't know that was possible with a watering can. She did cover it in water without warning, perhaps she scared it so much she made it think it's under attack by another piñata. No matter what is going on there's no time to be thinking of questions without answers, something is wrong with her little sour friend and she must help him!

But how? She doesn't know what's going on, is he sick? No, no, no more questions she just has to do something! She can't take a sour to the doctor. At least… not Patch…

She unties her neck scarf and carefully wraps up the sour bat like a little panic burrito to stop him from hurting her with his wings. She then scoops him up into her arms and attempts to calm him with a candy. She ends up getting a sour candy coughed up onto her mask and simply more screaming. Something is really wrong if it won't eat a candy. She looks at the village, then the desert. Over the hill she can see the chimney of Dastardos's home off in the far distant grey of the horizon. If she's quick, she might be able to make it through the hot sands to his home to help the sherbat.

Determination in her eyes, her sour in her arms and her shovel shading her head, she charges towards the bright, blistering heat of the sun plummeting down upon the heavy sand before her. She said she will save this sherbat and she'll be damned if she goes back on her word now.

She will be breaking that promise of not bothering him again, but surely helping a sour can be an exception.

At least, she hopes it can.


	6. Chapter 6: How to Get Hurt

WOW this gardener is a complete imbecile.

They're trying to have one of every pony piñata in their garden without killing one another. Completely idiotic. Foolish. Was this gardener oblivious or just a blunter tool than their shovel? This garden is up on the mountain range, so getting the piñata all the way here must have been a struggle, and yet they're using wire fences to split the garden into small sections as if that's an acceptable way to force the piñata to live. They're big piñatas, this was doomed to fail from the very beginning. Honestly, if you can spend the money on their requirements at least spend the money on decent fucking fences.

Dastardos just stares blankly, dumbfounded by the level of absolute absurdity before him. Broken, flimsy fences, trampled flowers, a single healthy horstacio holding its head high and about three other horse piñata slowly dying around in the debris of the rampage. How ironic to see a sick chewnicorn, he would laugh had this not been a depressing sight. The gardener is furious, swearing at the piñata as if it wasn't in their nature to fight, as if those cheap fences were meant to keep them locked up.

Dastardos floats around the gardener's line of sight, slowly, like a whisper in the wind. He quietly murmurs his song to soothe the pained cries of the sick piñata while also hoping to go by unnoticed by the surprisingly high level gardener.

Zumbug, ponocky, chewnicorn.

Three.

CRACK.

Two.

CRACK.

One.

THWACK.

What the fuck.

You're fucking joking... This piece of shit has a shovel. One of THOSE shovels.

Son of a bitch.

"--AND YOU CAN FUCK OFF TOO!"

Dastardos blinks himself back out of the blurred daze to see the gardener right up in his mask, screaming at him for freeing their piñata from this torture. He won't bother in enlightening them with small talk, or any form of verbal recognition. They aren't worth it. He tries to float around them.

THWACK.

This is going to wear thin very quickly. He tries to float around them once more, ignoring their aggressive words and rude hand gestures.

THWACK.

That. Is. It.

Giving zero fucks, Dastardos floats through them, sending them into a shivering cold, sneezing and shaking. They even drop their shovel out of shock. Finally, the poor chewnicorn can be put to rest. And put to rest it is.

CRACK.

Dastardos creeps his gaze around the garden, he isn't finished here, not by a long shot. There was another sick piñata, an innocent casualty in the crossfire of the pony piñata apocalypse.

Now, where is this final ill piñata? They shouldn't have to suffer for this long. He floats slowly, following the sound of the pathetic squeaks and cries of pain. If only his sour state didn't leave him with a one track mind, he would have been able to register that the gardener has gotten themself together again, and that they are even more furious than before.

Right in the back of his head, the ripple of pain shoots through his skull and down his spine. It feels like time slows down, the blurred spiral of his peripherals grows to encase all of his vision, he doesn't even hear the impact this time, just ringing in his ears and a solid pain in the back of his head, throbbing in his brain and a static in his vision like thousands of needles are pricked into his eyes.

He has no thoughts on the matter, he simply tries to keep heading to the sick piñata. The sooner he gets this over with, the sooner he can leave. He feels the shovel smashed into his abdomen this time when his vision blurs and bubbles. He'll get there, no matter how many times he's beaten, he'll get there, save the piñata, then this gardener can go stick a cactus so firmly up their arse that the prickly pears will be ripening in their throat.

Another two hits and then he starts seeing flashing lights spinning and spiraling in with the blurs. Great, he's dying isn't he, being beaten to death slowly by this deranged idiot with a deed.

Or… it's just Patchingo…

And how fucking long did it take him to get here? In his stupid little go-cart, with his dumbass spoon. He just fucking flings the medicine at the piñata and he went to a school to be taught that? Good fucking grief.

THWACK.

I SWEAR TO THE RAINBOW MAIDEN IF THIS PIECE OF SHIT GARDENER HITS ME AGAIN.

When the dizziness subsides, Patch has already started heading away from the garden, and the gardener is cuddling their recently healed camello.

He's free to leave, and promptly does so, the bright sunlight stings his eyes now. Everything hurts, even more so than usual. He tries to not let his shakes be seen. His chest... it hurts, it hurts so fucking much. His bad eye waters and twitches, that half of his face scrunching and swelling with each heartbeat that rings through his ears. He can taste some kind of metal in his mouth, he doesn't remember being hit in the face with the shovel. But fucking hell, oh fucking fuck his legs. It feels like they're broken again, he would be really hoping they aren't if he could think of anything else than the horrifically agonizing pain of snapped tendons and shifting bone. He quietly hums, the vibrations slightly soothing his throbbing headache. He changes his hums to whistles once he is a little bit further away, calling any sour piñata within earshot to him. They shall lay waste to this garden. A small pack of mallowolves, about 3 or so… maybe 6… maybe… if he could focus his vision a bit more he could actually count them… despite this, he whistles to them the instructions. Surround the garden, close in, chase away the remaining piñata, and destroy it all.

He floats his way to the next garden. He knows they won't be able to complete those instructions entirely, but he knows they won't disappoint him. The one thing that all of him agrees on, is that the gardener he just faced doesn't deserve to have a garden at all.

The next one is much more tame. A jungle garden, the border lined with mossy stones and tangled vines amongst a spiral maze of trees and plants deep within the tropical part of the island. Far enough away from the first garden to give him some time to recover as best he can.

A nonresident preztail lay sick near the far end of this garden, right on the garden border. The gardener is short but certainly less short tempered than the last. They appear to be running around their garden breaking the sour candy a ruffian is leaving behind and is desperately trying to get them to leave. It's kind of funny really, this little gardener chasing a ruffian in circles, shaking their shovel in the air at the round red rascal as they try and clean up the destruction left behind. Dastardos laughs quietly to himself. He floats down, past the "bennyhill theme" chase happening in the garden and makes his way to the preztail. Poor thing, ate a sour candy, they can be very misleading, can't they? No matter, there's nothing either of us can do about it now. He raises his whacking stick, and cracks it down against the soft papery shell to put the poor precious piñata out of its misery. This gardener is a good one, following the rules in not using tools on piñata outside of their garden. He turns to watch the gardener ruffian chase and have another silent laugh, able to distract himself from the pain for a little while.

The gardener finally drives the ruffian away and Dastardos figures that's his queue to go too. He takes his time through the jungle as he slowly makes his way home, humming to himself and smoothly weaving his weapon between his fingers. He's thinking he might make a quick detour to the Piñarctic to numb his aching body in the snow, but he really can't be bothered right now, he just wants to go home and sleep. It's like death but without the commitment, if only it was that easy.

He hears the rustles and the sounds of the jungle piñata around him. He likes to watch piñata go about their lives just as much as he likes to people watch. He just finds it interesting, he's not creepy. He finds a good branch to lay on and simply sits quietly, observing the piñata. It's nice to see all the birds, chatting away to one another, the syrupents sliding through the grass stealthily, raisants scuttling under the leaves and shrubs. The occasional dragumfly races past on their way to the swamp. All the piñata are really pretty even without their colour.

He watches quietly for a while, almost forgetting about the pain entirely, and he even manages to take a tiny nap, tucked away in the foliage, a small moment of escape from all that weighs heavy on him. That is until all the piñata are spooked and chased away by something in such a sudden manner that it wakes him. Disappointed, and assuming he was noticed, Dastardos floats off his branch and stretches a little, cracking the bones back into place again, this time with much more discomfort than usual.

He feels something harshly land on his shoulder and caw at him.

Huh, the sour crowla is back already? Did it get bored? He gently scritches the top of its head, weird, it seems distressed. He tilts his head with confusion and the crowla hops down his arm to his hand and starts to fly, holding his hand and leading him towards his home.

Great.

Fucking great. His house is under attack again isn't it? Is it Pester? It better fucking not be he is NOT in the mood to deal with the jackass in tights. He puts the crowla on his shoulder again and floats quickly through the air like a dolphin through the water, weaving through the trees and flora of the jungle to make his way home. He hopes he remembered to blow the candles out, it would be extremely awkward if he burnt his own house down. It better not be that psycho pony gardener trying to purge him and his sours for what he did, he probably wouldn't be able to keep it together if that were the case. He feels his head twitch aggressively at the mere thought of it. He would normally stop to calm down since his thoughts are beginning to make himself furious, but he doesn't have the time. He darts home, becoming more and more aggressive as he surges through the air. His mind spins out of control like a racecar on a wet track, until he finds himself within the darkness of his home and the truth of the matter able to put his frantic mind at ease with the fact… that… no one is here… no fire, no invaders.

Everything is fine.

What?

His eyes dart around the room. No fires, no intruders, no ruffians or even Pester, no fights... nothing seems to be wrong... So why did… the crowla… what? … what? He looked back at the Crowla in confusion. Seriously… what? It was his home it was leading him to, right? There's no way it wouldn't be... but now that he's here in the dark silence looking around his home, he finally notices what's out of the ordinary.

"... where are the sours?" he mumbles under his breath, suspiciously squinting as if it would help his half blind, glowing irises pierce through the tree bark and shadows to see through to the usual sour hiding places.

The tree is empty. No glowing eyes, jagged teeth, skitters, claws, hisses or growls to be found. Not even a single sour shellybean or profitermole was tucked away, hidden and out of sight.

He lets out a whistle, to let them know he is home, but he gets no response. He whistles again, to call them to him, but only the sour crowla that brought him here lands in the doorway. He whistles once more, louder this time, his voice rising with his worry. Again, only the crowla responds.

His already stressed and pained brain clicks over into full blown panic. Looking up into the chimney and down into the roots, in the holes and under pillows, he flings himself from one side of the room to the other, tearing the place a part. Where are the sours. Where are the sours. Where are the sours. No. No no. NO NO NO. WHERE are they? WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE ARE THEY? WHAT HAPPENED?

WHAT. HAPPENED.

He hears the crowla caw outside, attempting to get his attention.

Already fearing for the well being of his piñatas and immediately imagining every horrible event that might have ended with this outcome, his light headed, heavy chested panic clings to him as he quickly follows his little messenger once again, outside and around to the back of his home.

Not too far into the desert, a familiar brightly coloured blur is stuck in, what he assumes is a coconut tree, with several large blurry red objects below it. There! That must be them! He lets out a sigh of relief, that has to be where they are, and although it's strange that all of them are out there, he doesn't think much of it. He's just glad they're okay.

… Wait… what familiar brightly coloured blur? In a tree? He squints at it to try and focus. The colours certainly look familiar. Quite a bit of blue, and a splash of yellow, a flurry of pink, and a chunk of purple… hair seems to be a dark pink, almost maroon colour…. Small and dirty, despite being quite bright and flowery...

It's MoonLily again, isn't it?

He gives a dull stare to the crowla, as if to ask it if it was seriously thinking that he has the mental strength to deal with another gardener today, but the crowla already seems to be flying over towards the blurs. It certainly is very strange… whatever is going on over there... and it is clearly worth his time if all of his sours are there too… He sighs heavily, slips his hands under his mask to rub his face, and slowly gathers himself as best he can on his way over to the distant blur.

Although it is quiet for now, he can't help but notice to hear the faint sound of someone crying beneath the loud scraping and screaming of sour piñata. Heh, the poor little low level is so scared from the mean old sours she's crying… pathetic child… one half of him would be hollering with laughter if he wasn't hurting so badly, the other so completely overshadowed that the concern and panic that it has can't get much of a say in other than one question to put on his mind that he's been asking himself already.

What. Happened.


	7. Chapter 7: Fear of What's Below

Her mind is sprinting a million miles an hour in every direction as if it's trying to get away while she can't. Any words that come to mind get stuck in her throat, refusing to go any further. She wants to scream but even that doesn't make a sound, not even a gurgle.

MoonLily sits high in the coconut tree that keeps her from the jaws of death. In her frantic panic to try and take care of her sour sherbat she had completely forgotten about the other sours that live in the tree Dastardos calls home, sour cocoadiles included.

The sour crocodile piñatas love helpers. They love to hunt them, torment them, death roll them, and kill them, eat them, thrash them about like a living toy, their own personal plaything. Mily thought that being a gardener now would make her immune to the sour cocoadile' effects, their piercing gaze and demonic hell shrieks would sound like nothing but silly noises and googly eyes now, right? Surely they wouldn't attack a gardener. But her fear of them is still clinging to her chest just as tightly as her sherbat, and the sours with half of their body full of razor blades can practically smell her fear.

The moment she knocked on the dead twisted tree was the moment she became under full sour security surveillance, and although the other little red and black piñata made her nervous, she wasn't completely afraid until the cocoadiles emerged. They locked eyes with her and somehow just, knew, they knew she was afraid, and it triggered a frenzy deep inside their twisted sour brains.

She was lucky to get away, finding safety up in this tree, but now she's surrounded, stuck in the baking heat and harsh sun beating down on her. Her salted tears and paralyzed, panicked stare sends the cocoadiles into a craze in trying to leap up and snatch her down from the tree.

Frozen from fear, MoonLily simply sits, gripping a fistful of leaves in one hand and her sour sherbat in the other. She silently turns her mask into its own waterfall raining down from her eyes. She's a sitting quackberry up here and every fiber of her being is telling her that she will die down there, and there is nothing she can do about it.

She's too upset and terrified to notice the other sours attempting to stop the cocoadiles. Word goes around quickly in such a small sour community, she's 'The One that Gives Out Sweets' and they'll rather get trampled than have their brethren eat possibly their only chance at a sugar fix. A sour macaraccoon is clamped down on one of the cocoadiles tails, rapidly shaking and twitching from rage in being unable to do much else to the piñata twice their size and three times their crazed aggression. A bonboon tries to start a fight with one of the other cocoadiles to distract them, but only ends up winding them up more. The crowla swoops down at the cocoadiles, barely dodging the snap of jaws, papery feathers grazing against the teeth being clamped down around them. Sour mallowolves bite at the back of the cocoadiles necks to try and drag them away like a misbehaving pup, but their slippery, wriggly bodies twist and turn and are difficult to get a hold of.

Under the coconut tree is absolute chaos. The sounds of growls and roars shake the ground, and the thundering stomps and snarls echo the drums of war. The magic of the island flares and burns like the sand below, the music has begun, it is official.

A fight has broken out.

One roar in particular splits through the rest like a knife, calling almost all attention to it. A sour limeoceros with their head down, just a little bit further away, starts dragging it's hooves into the sand, preparing to charge the cocoadiles.

It may have good intentions, wanting to stop the Candy Giver from being eaten in hopes of being praised as a hero and selfishly getting all of the candy to itself, but good intentions nonetheless, however it's still very obviously a horrible idea. The crowla almost has a heart attack mid-flight and drops out of the sky for a brief moment. The macaraccoon makes the wise decision that being alive is worth more than getting sweets and starts to book it out of the way, zig zagging and panic screaming taking the remainder of the on looking sours with them, who were not helping in the slightest with the entire situation, and were most likely waiting to swoop in and gobble up any dropped and scattered candy from whatever mess the end of all this makes. One of the two mallowolves charges to the limeo, biting onto it's horn in an attempt to stop it while the other continues to try and settle down the cocoadiles, or at least keep them contained somehow.

All of the noise and commotion is causing the already panicked, ill sour sherbat to spiral further into deeper hysteria. It vomits up more sour candy out of stress, splattering and hacking up sour chunks and a gross red and black goo with it.

The entire situation is a complete disaster. Everything feels like a flurry of fiery red, like a sickening burning in the back of the throat from holding in tears for too long, a frantic panic like a child chasing a lost barkbark across a bustling highway. Everything's so hectic, going too quickly to keep proper track of. MoonLily could only take her eyes off of the cocoadiles for a moment just to look over at the limeoceros, and it's like time itself slowed down as she did so.

The limeoceros was in full charge towards the cocoadiles, the tree is about to be destroyed, her safety is about to be turned into splinters. Her immediate reaction to this? To hold the sherbat in her arms tightly and close to her chest, tucking the bundle of wings and teeth under her poncho for extra security. If she's going to fall, she won't let a single scratch come to her friend. As absolutely terrified as she is, with the certainty of being mauled and eaten below her, she will still keep her sour sherbat safe, she closes her eyes tightly, the tears making it difficult to see in the first place anyway.

Crack.

Upon impact one of the cocoadiles splits in half, sour candy exploding out and onto the sand to be baked into a melted sour mess, the two split halves writhing and squirming like two whirlms as it becomes trampled under the heavy hooves of the charging tank of a piñata.

Crunch.

The second cocoadile is crushed under the hooves as well, flattened and pressed as thin as the paper on its back, but it will be able to spring back from this soon enough. The mallowolf, still desperately trying to stop the charge ends up the same way. Their partner is able to leap out of the limeoceros' path but not without their tail being ripped clean off, sour candy being scattered behind them as they run back home with howls of pain.

Crash.

The coconut tree stood no chance. Like a dying scream the bark and roots snap and creak as it collapses, being half uprooted by the force, the coconuts and leaves dropping around it, and with the same harshness of the impact, the gardener falls.

The force of hitting the sand alone knocks the wind out of MoonLily's already shaky breaths, but skidding along the ground as well lets the sand engulf her body, stinging her skin with burning hot glass like shards. Her lower back, uncovered by cloth, is where the blow seems to be targeting her, as if the very ground itself is giving her a burning, sandpaper wrapped punch to the back. Although her eyes are closed tightly there is still somehow sand managing to find a way to get in them. It itches and hurts, burns and brings up even more tears. The sour sherbat is confused and doesn't understand what is happening, and is more afraid now than ever, biting and clawing as best as he can while wrapped up.

MoonLily simply stays where she fell, holding the sherbat close to her chest. She somehow manages to find the strength to pet his ears, the motion helping herself feel a tiny bit comforted in this situation while she also attempts to calm down her small friend. She lays in the sand, eyes shut and waiting for the inevitable. It's not like she would be able to open her eyes even if she wanted to, the granules of sand stinging too harshly for her eyelids to open without force anyway.

Around her she can hear the sours freeze at the sound of a loud, harsh whistle. She didn't know a whistle could be made to sound angry before, but that is the best she can describe such a sound.

There is a disturbing silence, a heavy, eerie feeling weighing down upon her. Her own breathing sounds too loud in her mind in comparison to this sudden stop of sound. Her heart is in her ears banging and rippling through her mind while her breaths blow up and scrunch down her brain like a paper bag.

The sour sherbat breaks the silence with another stress vomit of sour candy.

Another angry whistle, ever so slightly different from the last rings in MoonLily's ears, and is shortly followed by scuffing of paws and hooves through the sand. The sours are leaving, and there is only one person that she knows the sours listen to.

MoonLily slowly forces her eyes open, trying to wipe and blink away the sand and tears. Eventually being able to see again, she looks around to make sure she isn't about to lose a limb or be death rolled. Relieved that she gets to live another day, she finally notices the person floating above her, casting a shadow down upon her. There is sour candy everywhere, and she is covered in red and black sludge and candy chunks as well.

"Wh… What. Happened…"

He sounds extremely furious, his gravelly voice being hissed from his mask's crooked mouth. His words sound like they're being forced out of his voice box as if he doesn't even want to speak. Despite all of this, his intimidating presence, deathly glare and unmistakable fury, MoonLily still smiles up at him, grateful to be saved by the very person she was looking for. Her smile fades quickly however, as she moves in an attempt to get up, pain stinging all over.

Disregarding the sand, burn and ache, she sways her way up to her feet and holds out the sherbat that she has been protecting with her life, "something is really wrong with him… and… and I don't know… I don't know how… or.. or why or…" her voice quivers with her lips and breath. More tears fall as she tries to speak, still being very shaken from the near death experience. Her voice starts to drown in her tears again, her throat being too dry to hold conversation, "please help him," she manages to plead before bursting into tears again, unable to hold back the floodgates in her eyes.

It feels like an eternity passes as Dastardos simply stares at her, emotionless. It's absolutely terrifying.

Is… is that a no…?

MoonLily opens her mouth to try and speak again, but only more sobs squeak out of her throat. Her limbs become shaky from standing, and eventually her legs just give out below her. Collapsing to her knees, she holds the sherbat close to her chest again and tries one last time to give him a sweet, to get him to eat something, to please, please, please just… eat the sweet, it'll make you feel better I promise. She simply gets sour vomit in her mask again, it's two sour candies this time. She pets his ears with her shaking hands, she's tired, she's hurt, she's scared, but she still wants to help him. She isn't going to give up on him.

"Get up."

His voice is cold and harsh, a different tone from before but still just as intimidating and threatening. MoonLily slowly followed the order, shakily standing with great difficulty, but standing nonetheless. Dastardos carefully takes the sherbat burrito from her arms to inspect them himself, taking his time. Mily begins to sway and stumble on her legs, but finds herself caught by a bony arm on her back. She feels him grip her shoulder and his scarf shifts gently around to her sides to help support her from under her arms.

"This way."

Again, she slowly and shakily does as she's told, and lets him lead her to the back of his home and guide her through the short but twisting and turning tunnels of the roots until the center of the dead tree is reached. The only form of light being the afternoon sun through the curtains and the glowing eyes beside her. She can barely see anything in front of herself, her eyes watery, pained and unable to adjust to the significantly darker place she has just entered. She is far too tired to be frightened at the moment, and she trusts Dastardos much more than she really should. She finds herself in a pile of pillows and blankets, much more soft and comforting than the sand from before. Exhausted and lightheaded, the adrenaline wearing off quickly, it takes her a matter of seconds to pass out in the comforting dome of soft materials she has found herself in, not being able to think of how much danger she is truly in.

And yet, she falls into slumber without a second thought.


	8. Chapter 8: Fear of being below

She just… fell asleep… just like that…

She looks peaceful, gentle breaths make her chest rise and fall like waves of the ocean, tucked away in the corner full of pillows and blankets. As interesting as it is to watch a living creature simply exist, there is a more important matter at hand right now.

Dastardos brings his attention to the sour sherbat in his arms. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be ill, at least not physically. It's scared and stressed, and covered in sour vomit, the poor little paper batty…

Singing his song to calm and soothe the distressed piñata, Dastardos floats over to the particular corner of this single roomed home that he calls his kitchen. He places the sour bundle gently on the poorly carved out bench, which is more like a root that has been whittled flat by a very crude shovel. He unwraps them from MoonLily's neck scarf and throws the cloth aside, the scarf is ruined anyway, crusted with sour candy chunks, red and black confetti and stains from the sour sherbat's stress vomit. The sherbat is certainly much calmer while hearing the melody being sung to them. Their ears are still flicking and turning in every direction, and even though they're not completely better, they're good enough to stay still, laying on their back with their wings wrapped around themself.

Dastardos can't get any running water in his home, at least not conveniently. He has jars, buckets and wooden pipes placed strategically around in the roof to catch rainwater for the sours to drink, and for him to wash his hands and face with. His home is just far enough into the desert to end up missing most of the rain throughout the year. He has to stand out in the middle of his old garden if he wants to have a good shower from the sky. To get around the lack of water he's managed to find and definitely not steal himself a rusty old watering can that he's set up in his kitchen above his cooking pot. The water in the can runs out faster than Dastardos's patience, but it's still better than having to rely on the ceiling rain system. Dastardos picks up the sour sherbat with his arms and has his scarf pour the watering can over the piñata's body so that he can clean the sour crust from its paper fur, not wanting to wet the sherbat's face, which is why he doesn't just place them into the pot for a bath.

The moment the water hit the bat piñata it was shot into a chaotic panic, screaming and throwing its wings around in an attempt to get away or fly or just throw the water off of itself. Startled by the reaction, Dastardos nearly drops the sherbat into the pot below. His scarf rears up ready to catch the bat if it falls, but he keeps a firm hold of its feet and takes it away from the water as it flaps and tries to fly into all different directions.

He hushes them, trying to calm them down again. After a few moments of hushing and seeing no effect, he gently whistles at them, asking for its attention, he does this many times until the sherbat looks up at the direction of the whistles, still throwing themself around, upside-down in his hands. He sighs quietly and returns to his singing for the piñata, putting a little more effort into the magic of it. Some of the surrounding piñata start to lay down to sleep, and thankfully, the sour sherbat also calms down, wrapping its wings around itself once again and rocks itself back and forth as if the bat is a frightened child in a thunderstorm. It lets Dastardos turn it the right way around to place back down onto the bench.

It's as if it's scared of the water… alright… let's try… not, doing that then…

But… how will we clean him up though…?

He floats around for a short while, trying to come up with something. Upon seeing MoonLily's scarf he discarded earlier, his own scarf slithers and picks it up to bring it to his hands. Doing his best to not think too much in an attempt to avoid an argument with himself, he floats back over to the watering can and soaks the cloth, wringing it out a few times to clean it of the sour vomit as best he can. He'll use this to wipe away the grossness on the piñata's paper.

The sherbat is very uncomfortable with this damp rag being rubbed on its body, but it's not panicking like before. Success!

With a bit more gentle scrubbing Dastardos discards the neck scarf for a second time, now it's really ruined. He picks up the sherbat to admire his good work, all nice and squeaky clean. Speaking of squeaks, the sherbat seems to be happy finally, and giving tiny squeaks and nose twitches up at the reaper holding him, ears still rapidly twisting and turning around despite the tired drooping of its eyes. Dastardos's singing is helping to send it to sleep.

Dastardos floats back over to the center of the room and holds an arm up into the air to the canopy of the tree. His scarf slithers and wraps its way around his arm, up and off his hand, and hooks itself onto the roof with both ends, and as if it was the world's thinnest hammock, Dastardos floats up and lays on it, holding the curled up sherbat on his chest as he gently rocks from side to side, quietly singing the lullaby he only half remembers.

He doesn't pay attention to how much time passes, but the sunset's orange of the sky shines through the cracks and holes of his tree by the time he moves again, still quietly singing of course.

It's like that sometimes, once he starts going he just, can't stop. His voice gets hoarse and dry when this happens, sometimes his singing ends up sounding like his speaking voice by the end of the day. He needs to remember to take a drink to soften the vocal cords again, but he very rarely ever does.

He takes his time quietly floating around his tree, lighting the candles by simply clicking his fingers against the tip of the wick. He has many candles on every shelf, nook and cranny in his home, he makes them out of the sour candy the piñata leave around inside. It's therapeutic for him to melt them down and drip the wax into shape. That is, when he has the energy for it of course. The little lights make it look like stars are in the ceiling, and it helps him see what he's doing at night. The sour candy even helps cover the stagnant musk that would surely be hanging inside, from rotting wood to the months-old rainwater, to the mangy ragged corpse that rarely gets to bathe, the candles may smell sour, but is a much more pleasant smell than everything else in the room.

Once his house is ominously lit to his liking, Dastardos returns to his place gently swinging back and forth on his scarf hammock with the sherbat. It was at this moment that he spotted MoonLily again and was reminded that she was here, still asleep. How she wasn't woken up from the sherbat's panic before is a mystery to him, then again, she really doesn't look well. He knows the sours would have bothered her if she tried to get inside on her own… but why did they chase her all that way into the desert? Even for them it was strange behavior… he still doesn't know what happened. When he asked MoonLily she simply told him about the sour sherbat, as if that piñata was what was important to know about in that moment. She clearly cares endlessly about this little guy.

Dastardos doesn't notice his mask start to smile a little at the bat on his chest. He watches the gardener, again, not paying attention to the passage of time, again.

Watching her sleep is probably creepy…

Not wanting to be a creepy, because he isn't a creepy creep, he simply closes his eyes so he isn't tempted to continue staring. He doesn't notice that his swaying has now matched up with the beat of his song that he is still quietly mumbling.

The gentle light of the candles becoming brighter than the light outside, the swaying of the breeze helping him rock back and forth, and his own magic in the song is making Dastardos himself start to drift off to sleep. Strangely enough, feeling safe for once.

He doesn't let himself fall asleep completely though, just enough to be brought back awake at the sound of movement from under sheets. She's finally starting to wake up again, and he still hasn't prepared any dialog. Shit.

With a bit of internal arguing and mental retakes, he finally manages to mentally prepare himself enough to be able to at least, hopefully, hold a conversation. Maybe. He thinks.

This is going to go so fucking poorly. Isn't it.

He waits quietly until he can hear that she is definitely awake, not wanting to be looking at her when she gets up, worried that it might seem like he was watching her sleep which he definitely was not doing because he is definitely not creepy. He can hear her shifting and attempting to sit up, but she can't seem to be able to do so. He takes a side-eyed glance at her, his sour clogged vision making it near impossible to see her, but she is definitely awake. He keeps his voice down, almost gentle, even with his scratchy hoarse voice, "finally up again, eh?"

She nods shyly, politely holding her arms across her torso, watching him from her place on the comfort dome. She is clearly frightened, and still exhausted.

He nods as well, "... You... feeling any better?"

He hears her sigh very quietly as she looks down at her hands, "... well… if I'm being perfectly honest… no… not really…"

He was not expecting that sort of response, though logically he should have. He finally looks over at her. He had never heard her voice without that spark of joy it normally has, it didn't feel right. She's the sickeningly sweet, little low level gardener with stars in her eyes and her head in the clouds with sunshine radiating out of her arse, not this, this quiet, soft spoken, dull and frightened version he's looking at. She even looks a little bit grayer.

Despite him telling himself there was no need to panic, he finds his throat and chest knotting up again. He leans a little bit more towards her in his scarf hammock, "you… uh… you alright?" You just asked that dumbass. "fuck." You said that out loud. FUCK. "Uh… wh.. what happened?" the gears in his brain finally click back into place and he remembers his pre-prepared notes again.

"That's right! I asked you before, didn't I? I still don't have an answer from you yet, Miss MoonLily…"

He hooks the sleeping sherbat onto the branch his scarf is on, letting the sour hang comfortably upside-down on its own as he turns over in the hammock scarf, now on his stomach with a leg dangling down and his arms crossed for his head to rest on. He raises a brow at her, looking down at her with suspicion, "... apparently the sherbat was more important--"

"Sherbat! Is, is he okay? Did you save him? Oh please tell me he's alright," MoonLily suddenly blurts out the words with tears in her eyes, holding her hands together and physically pleading that he tell her. She genuinely seems upset and worried about the little sour creature, she's most likely struggling to see much past the candlelight and Dastardos's eye glow, which would explain why she can't see the bat above him.

Dastardos floats there quietly with an emotionless expression, a little lost at the spontaneous interruption. He was shocked at the response and level of concern she has over the sour. He hadn't prepared for that, and so he doesn't have a response in the immediate moment. He just slowly points up at the bat, his voice still quiet, "yeah… it's… … fine… I guess…"

He sees her let out a sigh of relief and relax her shoulders, a little smile creeping across her mask as she lays her head back onto the pillows for a moment and closes her eyes. Before he gets the chance to try and ask what happened again he hears her voice softly speak, with that little spark of joy that has returned to her soul, "thank you."

His brain becomes numb as he simply freezes in place again. No thoughts, no feelings, no internal or external motion, the soft sweet voice slipping into his ear and lodging itself into the sour muk of his mind, stopping the entire machine. The gentle praise sinking in slowly, delicately. It reaches his face and it softens his gaze and relaxes his brows, his jaw unclenches and his mouth opens ever so slightly.

"... You're welcome…"

His throat had calmed enough to let his voice whisper without his conscious knowledge, but this time it wasn't the sour poison getting to speak, it was something else that had been drowned and buried under the black ink for years. His chest hurt less and less with each soft breath, inhale, exhale, it felt nice to just breathe, he doesn't remember at what point he stopped.

His focus returns to the gardener when she lifts her head again to smile at him, "I… don't know what you did, but I'm glad everything is okay now."

"I still don't know what happened to begin with."

He watches her as she shyly fiddles with her poncho, looking down again. She's flustered and embarrassed, her mask clearly animating as such, "oh… um… yeah… sorry…" She straightens up her poncho and rests her hands in her lap politely before she looks back up at him again. "Um… where do I start?"

He shrugs his sharp, bony shoulders with a head tilt, not knowing either. There's a pause before he points up at the sherbat again.

"... him? Yeah, start with him. Before you brought him here, what happened?"

He listens to every detail of the story. It's not unusual for the sours to fight each other… especially if candy is involved… crowlas and sherbats do tend to run into one another and become angry, but it still feels strange in this instance, and then water making the sherbat freak out is something he's learnt as well.

"... I think it just… doesn't like water… more so than most piñata, you know?" he sways a little in his makeshift hammock, "like it's got a phobia of water or something… it did the same thing when I tried cleaning it up."

"Oh," her voice sounds both surprised and upset, "oh no, poor little guy… do you think something bad might have happened to him before? I imagine it must be pretty scary not being able to see and then being around water…"

Dastardos shrugs again in response, "eh, we may never know… same with why or how he's blind…" he sits up, now sitting on his scarf like a swing and he leans on his side to peer over the top of her, "but now, for the next bit… so you brought him here… and the sour's came out to investigate I assume?"

She nods quietly, now becoming nervous, she fidgets with her hands as she speaks, "they were surprisingly gentle, they were just coming over to say hello I'm sure, I know I would be curious if a stranger showed up to my garden making a commotion…" she lowers her head and her voice, seeming to become more and more anxious, "... but… um…" She takes a few breaths but just hides her mask in her hands. It looks and sounds like she's trying to stop herself from crying. Dastardos slowly descends from his scarf, which lets go of the branch above and slithers around his shoulders again just as slowly. He floats low enough for his mask to be at the same level as her's, laying in the air in front of her.

"But… what?" he didn't mean to sound assertive, but it seems as though that's just how the words fell out, the half of him that is irritated with how long this is taking beginning to over power the concerned big brother instinct that's somehow managed to stay floating around somewhere in his core being.

"The cocoadiles…" she shakily murmurs the words out, she tries to sigh away the feeling but it doesn't look like its working. "I… I thought… I thought I would be okay now… I'm supposed to be a gardener… I… I just…" she wipes her mask and shakes her head, looking to the floor. "... I don't know…"

"and what's so scary about them? Seems you can handle every other piñata in this tree…" Dastardos gestures around with a slow spin in the air before stopping, facing her again but this time upside-down to keep himself from getting bored. "Did one try to rip your leg off or something?"

"Arm… actually…" she mutters through a sniffle.

Oh fuck.

A wave of guilt hits him like a shovel, he was only poking fun he didn't actually think it was something that might have happened. He slowly turns the right way up in silence, not really knowing how to respond. He watches as she rolls up the sleeve part of her poncho to show her left shoulder, and the huge bite mark scarred across the entirety of it. Although it was a scar, it looked deep, and looked relatively new as far as scars go, the skin tissue still very clearly not completely finished healing.

"Back when I was a helper… I knew they would hurt us but… I didn't really want to believe it… they're still a piñata after all… no piñata would, really hurt us, right? … …" she slowly let her poncho rest back across her shoulder. Now that he's seen the scar he can't unsee it, he notices the parts that her poncho doesn't cover, he follows the scar down her side and he's finally noticed the burns and sand scrapes on her back. He remains speechless as she continues, "they're just doing what's in their nature… I was a helper, they're a sour cocoadile… that's just how things are, but… but I'm not anymore… they shouldn't… they…" she falls silent, staring at the floor with tears welling up in her eyes.

The piñata must have somehow known she was a helper at one point, or remembered her as one. He almost frowns, but continues to remain emotionless on his mask, "if you were a helper then where was the gardener? Did they help at all? Surely they would have done something... though, heh, I have met a few shitty gardeners in my time… like today…" he growls quietly at the mere thought of the pony gardener. They were infuriating. If he could go back and beat their skull in he would. Speaking of skulls he gently rubs the back of his, the pain seeping back to him for a moment before his attention is brought back to reality.

"He…" she sighs, but the emotion behind it is unclear. She holds her breath and lets it out slowly, she seems to sink down in the pillows even further as she does so, "... I… … he… I guess he did… it felt like it took him a very long time to call Patch for me, but I was pretty hysterical… apparently… I don't really remember… he did… hold me in his arms though… kept me safe from the sours I guess… I think… ….. I didn't feel safe but… he could have just left me there so… I'm… grateful… he saved my life… he could have just left me to die... but… he didn't so..."

She herself seems confused by her own story… and this makes Dastardos confused as well. Weird. Though she did say that she doesn't remember very well. He squints, confused and ever so slightly concerned, "did you go back to working for him after that?"

There is a long pause of silence. Dastardos can feel the weight in the air and the chill of the sudden drop in the atmosphere.

MoonLily slowly sighs another shaky sigh and stares up at the candle lights above her.

"I don't really want to talk about it right now… sorry..."


	9. Chapter 9: On Your Own

Is this what it's like when she asks everyone else all these questions? MoonLily has been sitting politely in the piles of pillows with Dastardos circling above her like a shark in the air.

He has been asking her a lot of things, but she doesn't mind, she's just very tired. She doesn't want to fall asleep though, it would be very rude since she's in a conversation currently. Dastardos seems to know when to change the subject whenever the conversation begins to get too uncomfortable for her. Mily never thought of Dastardos to be so social. It must be lonely living out here with only the sour piñata as company, it's likely he doesn't get any visitors or friends to talk to, especially about the goings on around the island outside his immediate life.

"What kind of helper were you? Did you have a uniform?"

She laughs softly, then shrugs and sighs, "for a little while I did… but then the others ended up leaving so, it was just me. Didn't really need a uniform then…" she smiles up at Dastardos warmly, like the candlelight sprinkled within the dark capsule of the tree home. "I was a Gardeling."

He pauses in his circles and raises a brow at her in obvious confusion, "a what?"

She laughs again, that's the usual reaction she gets, and Dastardos's mask making exaggerated expressions like that is a bit silly, it makes her smile.

She takes a breath to calm down, not wanting for it to seem like she's laughing at him as she nods, "yeah, we weren't around for very long. We had big, flowery yellow masks and long yellow dresses, we took care of the garden while the gardener was away or asleep. Watering plants, feeding piñata, trimming grass, just generally keeping an eye on things, we didn't add or take away anything from the garden, we just kept it all the same as when the gardener left so that when they return they knew that nothing would have changed."

"Huh, sounds like a boring job," Dastardos continues his slow circles again as he listens.

MoonLily simply shrugs with a small smile, "I loved it, and I needed the money anyway, I couldn't just up and quit like the rest when things got bad." Dastardos stops his circles again, it looks like he's trying to find his words. That's okay, she's starting to just expect the pauses and silence from him now, his brain just works differently to hers, she assumes.

"Bad… how?" a bit of concern can be heard but it's mainly curiosity behind his voice.

MoonLily sighs, she should have known that would be his question, "I… still don't really know… I'm pretty sure it was a mix of a lot of things that just made it hard for everyone, so we had to go our separate ways. I was able to become just a generic helper." She giggles nervously, "didn't really need a uniform then."

"... Why did you become a helper?" he floats a bit off course and into the shadows for a moment, Mily watches him as best she can, she thinks he shoos away a few sours or something. That's right, she's still in his home, the sours are probably curious of her, she must be very different from what they're used to. She'll be alright though, everything will be okay right…?

"Hey… Helper… why'd you become one?"

She blinks a few times as the glowing eyes stare over at her from the darkness, slowly returning to the candle light she sits in. "Oh!" she is a little embarrassed at herself for getting lost in thought, "oh…" and then her heart sinks a little as she thinks of the answer. She sits silently as she ponders over how to put the thoughts and feelings into words.

"... Right…" Dastardos flops his back onto the very top of the comfort dome, right behind MoonLily, the pillows and blankets sinking to make a bit of room for him, "I'm assuming it's not for the excitement and adventure of being a Helper then. Clearly such a riveting profession wouldn't be for the faint of heart…"

His words were dripping with sarcasm, but they did make her laugh a little bit, she can't help her smile growing on her mask. The smile doesn't stay though, her laughter is hurting her back. She lets out a pained breath and closes her eyes for a moment. She feels the pillows behind her shift, Dastardos has gotten up again, it's strange how before he would barely speak let alone move so much, now he can't seem to sit still.

She opens her eyes to look at him, but she can't seem to find him around her anymore, he must be in the shadows again. With a very gentle sigh, she leans her head back and closes her eyes again to think of where to start.

"I… really wanted my own garden, so, so much. My happiest memories are with my parents just, watering plants, playing with piñata… it's the simple things I remember being the most fun. I needed a job to save up the coins, I couldn't just ask Bart to loan me the money... that... just wouldn't be fair on him. He works hard for his passion and to make ends meet, I needed to earn them myself, just like my parents earned their garden. Bart did help a lot though, he's good friends with Arfur which is how I got the job in the first place... and… he did slip a few chocolate coins into my pockets when he knew I really needed them, he thinks I don't know… but I do… he's a smart tinkerer, but not a very sneaky one."

MoonLily smiles fondly, placing her hands together over her heart out of gratitude, "he's the best carer I could have ever asked for, honestly, I'm so lucky. I don't know how I would have made it on my own."

"On your own?"

Dastardos's curiosity was met with heavy silence. MoonLily attempts to keep her smile, but she feels her brave mask failing her. Yes. On her own, alone and afraid, even more clueless and naive than she already is. Her eyes start to sting, and swell as she forces the tears back, now is not the time for overwhelming emotion. She simply nods, not wanting to speak in case letting out her voice will let out the tears as well.

It's almost as if Dastardos can read her mind, or sense the tension in the air, because he changes the subject again, as to keep her mind from dwelling on painful memories she's sure.

"You… really like that weird sour Sherbat, don't you?"

"Yes, I like all piñata really… but him in particular, he's pretty cute… and he needs my help…"

"I guess…"

The silence is long, and awkward. Dastardos is clearly not very good at these sorts of things, but it doesn't bother Mily, she's exhausted, her back aches, her eyes are puffy and she just wants to rest a little while longer. Slowly, she closes her eyes again, and bit by bit she inches closer and closer to sleep. The music of the island is a bit more melancholy in here, but it is still gentle and soothing like a cool breeze drifting over the hot sands of the Dessert Desert. The magic and melody swirls slowly like a waltz, around the outside of the tree, only creeping inside to softly kiss the forehead of those willing to let it. And a gentle kiss goodnight is exactly what Mily needs.

"Catch." --THUD.

Something heavy startlingly hits MoonLily square in the mask, rolls down her chest and lands in her lap, all before she even has a moment to register what's going on. That really hurt. She rubs where she was hit with a groan as she tries to see what the projectile even is. Holding it up to the candle light, she can see the heavy item is a glass bottle, not very big though… it looks very similar to a perfume bottle, but a few cracks up the very top and a lid made of a thick twig shoved into the neck shows that it was probably thrown away by its original owner after it was broken. MoonLily is a bit surprised, she didn't know Dastardos collected nicnacs. There's a liquid inside the bottle that is thick like honey and too dark to see the colour in this sort of light.

Curiously, Mily looks over at the eyes in the darkness to ask, "what is this?"

"Medicine," Dastardos replies bluntly, "throw that shit on where it hurts and drink the rest. You'll feel better by morning."

MoonLily is taken aback, now inspecting the bottle even closer, "How.. how did you get this?"

She hears a quiet laugh from the shadows, as if her amazement was amusing, "Home brew, they don't call me a witch doctor as an insult…"

"That's amazing! I… I had no idea you could even make this," MoonLily is genuinely surprised, very carefully watching the medicine swirl as she tilts the bottle back and forth. Suddenly an idea springs up in her head like a bunnycomb in long grass.

"Can.. can you make medicine for all the sours? To stop their pain or, or even unsour them?" her eyes are bright with hope and her smile big with wonder.

But her smile slowly fades the longer the silence is held. There is a sharpness in Dastardos's emotionless stare that makes her feel as though she's said something wrong. Although she can't see the frustration in the reaper, his scarf rears and hisses in anger, and his raspy voice hisses even more so.

"If I could. You don't think I would've done it by now?" his words are snappy through snarled teeth.

Mily flinches away from him out of instinctive fear. She doesn't understand what she said was wrong, she certainly didn't mean to upset him. She gasps softly out of pain, the flinch sending a jolt burning down her back. Watery eyed, she apologizes through clenched teeth, though she still doesn't know what she did exactly.

Her breaths are shaky again, and she decides to stay quiet, scared that she might say something wrong again. She just quietly opens the medicine bottle and attempts to gently apply the medicine to her sore back. Pouring a little onto her hand, she very painfully tries to turn and reach around to her back.

She struggles to reach the wounds with more than her fingertips, and that alone stings barely enough for her to handle. She takes a moment to rest, having barely started treatment on her back. She tries to wipe away her tears in a way that doesn't make it obvious that they're there.

Seeing Dastardos move on the edge of the darkness grabs her attention very quickly, but, she notices a change in his demeanor. He places his scarf up on the wall, and is very slow and careful with how he moves, as if he doesn't want to frighten her again. She can't exactly help it, as much as she considers him a friend, he is still terrifying. Though, the act of him simply removing what was most threatening to her from himself made it much easier for her to calm her heart rate down. The scarf flows in the breeze like fabric yet it still moves independently like a living creature, without being attached to Dastardos at all.

She looks up at him, hoping that now, maybe, he might be able to help her. Though she figures he might still be mad at her, so she has her doubts about his aid.

He glances at her from the corner of his eye, then sort of stares at nothing for a little while. Was that a no? A maybe? She supposes she hasn't actually asked him to help her just yet. She is a bit afraid to though.

"Don't…"

She pauses, confused and concerned. Don't what? Don't ask? Don't say something like what she suggested again?

"I…"

MoonLily is silent, watching him quietly. He is a very hard person to read, so she focuses on as much of him as she can. He's trying to talk, really, really trying. He's expressionless, but his fists are clenched tightly, shaking, and his eyes are screaming, almost teary.

Is he... in pain?

With that suddenly it all clicks in her head, everything makes sense now and she feels very dumb for not realizing sooner. He's sour. Of course he knows almost everything about the sour piñata, and it's not just because he lives with them, it's because he's just like them. Of course he would have tried to help them if he could, of course he would have made medicine to heal them if he could. He must have gotten upset with her when she mentioned it because he's tried and failed.

He's sour too, so of course he doesn't mean to do those things he does, it's in his nature, just like the sours. And he is in pain too, living in that sour hell and imbalance he talked about before.

MoonLily wants to get up and just hug him. Give him a great big hug and make everything alright.

"... Sorry…" Dastardos manages to force the word out. It was obviously hard for him to say, but it felt sincere. She accepted it before he even finished saying it.

Mily nods, and very slowly, gingerly holds out the medicine bottle towards him, her voice gentle and sweet, "I… understand if you don't… but… can you help me, please?"

He is still for only a few moments before very carefully drifting over to her and taking the bottle. He sits behind her, but he barely touches the pillows. It seems he's being hyper aware of himself and his immediate surroundings, doing everything he can to be as careful and delicate as his boney body allows. Mily holds the back of her poncho and as much of her singlet as she can out of the way for him, and soon enough she was handed the bottle back again.

Confused, Mily looks at the bottle to find it 2/3rds of the way empty. She looks back to see Dastardos wiping his hands on his shirt. It takes her a few moments to realize she can move with significantly less pain than before. Strange, she didn't feel anything at all. How delicate can he be if she didn't even feel his touch? This thought was sort of comforting to her, that he isn't as violent and heartless as she's been told.

She smiles at him happily, while he can only give her short glances before looking back down at his hands. He's either unable to focus, or a bit embarrassed. Possibly both.

"Thank you, Dastardos," she smiles even more, especially when it looks like he seems to grow in embarrassment about the sincere appreciation, turning away from her even more and mumbling under his breath. Mily brings her attention back to the medicine and drinks the rest like she was told to do. It has the texture and thickness of honey, but not very tasty, and not nearly as sweet. It does seem to dissolve in her mouth though, which was a nice surprise. After untwisting her mask's expression from the gross medicine taste, she takes a few deep breaths and certainly feels much better than before, but still very tired. She yawns and stretches, finally being able to do so now that the pain has eased off.

She doesn't even finish stretching when she's thrown back down onto the soft pillows behind her with something thudding harshly onto her chest. The movement even startled Dastardos, which is a bit funny to see. The loud and excited squeaks brings a smile to Mily's mask.

"Sherbat!" she gives the piñata a gentle kiss to his forehead, followed by some cheek scritches with both her hands, "oh look at you, I'm so glad you're okay."

The paper bat squeaks again, but a bit more firmly, sniffing his little nose through the air rapidly. With a quiet giggle, Mily holds up a candy to his nose, "is this what you're looking for, you little handsome man?"

The piñata quickly snatches the candy with the hooks of his wings, and snuggles down comfortably on MoonLily's chest, with happy little ear wiggles as he nibbles the sweet. Slowly, bite by bite, the halo begins to form above his head, and once the candy is nothing but drool on his wings, the sour falls asleep again, warm and safe in the arms of his gardener.

Mily snuggles down for a final time, and gives one last kiss to the sherbat's forehead. Her voice a quiet, sleepy whisper as she murmurs another thank you to Dastardos in her last moments of being awake.


End file.
